My Northwest Rhode Island : Where RI Household Incomes Have Risen the Most

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Where RI Household Incomes Have Risen the Most

Posted by Wayne G. Barber

Here Are the Counties Where Household Income Has Risen the Most in Rhode Island American households are making more money today than they did three decades ago—in some places, a lot more. In order to find out which places have seen the greatest increase in household income, we turned to the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS), which uses historical reports from the decennial Census and the American Community Survey to track median income over time. Research site MooseRoots then adjusted all the data to 2015 dollars to filter out the effects of inflation. On the whole, households in northeastern states have seen the largest income increase since 1980, with New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont ranking among the top five. South Dakota and the District of Columbia round out the top list. In each case, household income has risen over 30% in just 30 years. Only a handful of states have seen median household incomes actually decrease since 1980—and several of them are in the Midwest. For a big-picture perspective on the changes across the nation, Mooseroots created heat maps to show the 30-year transformation, both in absolute dollars and percent change. You can use the toggle menu below to adjust the metric.

On the extreme ends, Massachusetts household income rose over $18,000 in three decades, while household income in Michigan dropped by about $5,000. Meanwhile, the median increase across the whole nation was $6,280.