This look at our regional income levels is a precursor to a
more in-depth look that will hopefully be part of the next Herkimer County
and Oneida County Retrospective Report. Written after the release of Census
2000 data, these previous reports involved a review of data from as long ago as
the 1950 census, although much of it was limited to only going back as far as
1960 or 1970. These limitations were due largely to the introduction of
new concepts (such as poverty) or a change in the basic definitions and
collection of data on an issue, such as race. Sometimes, issues were only able
to be examined in a broad context, such as white versus non-white populations.
But there were many topics in which the data did allow for direct comparison
over several decades with little change in how the data was collected or coded.
One of these was income. Income
is generally measured in three ways within census data: household income,
family income, and per capita income. Each measures three very different
things. Household data measures the cumulative income of all those people
within a housing unit; family income reflects the income earned a family unit’s
members; and per capita income is the total cumulative income of a geographical
area divided evenly by the total of all the persons living there. As a general
matter, median family income tends to be higher than median household income.
In comparison, per capita income is lower than either family or household
income. This is understandable given that every person is included in its
calculation, including those not earning income (or having very low incomes)
such as children, the elderly, or the infirmed.
The tables below show each of
these measures of income since 1970 for each county. In addition, each measure
of income is also reported based on its adjusted inflationary value to the year
2010. This comes from use of the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This allows for a
more accurate view of real income changes over time.
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| Click to Enlarge Herkimer County Data |
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| Click to Enlarge Oneida County Data |
So for example, the median
household income in 1970 for Oneida
County $8,555; by 2010,
the median household income had increased to $47,257. In 2010, this represents
an increase of more than five times what a household made forty years ago! But
that simple view of income doesn’t give the reader the whole story. When
inflation is taken into account, the amount the median household earned in 1970
($8,555) is actually the equivalent of $50,009 in 2010 dollars. So in reality
the 2010 median income level of households in Oneida County
appears to less than it was in 1970, based on the rate of inflation.
Of course, the region has
undergone considerable economic challenges during this time frame and not all
of it has been equally spread out by decade. Taking a further glance at household
income data also shows us how the period between 1970 and 1980 was one of the
most difficult for people. Real household income (that is to say inflation
adjusted income) in both Herkimer and Oneida
Counties dropped considerably over
that period – a more than 17% decline in Herkimer
County and almost a 10% decline in Oneida County.
It continued to drop between 1980 and 1990 in Herkimer
County (-3.7%) while it saw a modest
gain in Oneida County (+2.5%). In the following decade
(1990 to 2000) Herkimer County saw some household income growth (+6.2%), but
it all but disappeared for Oneida
County residents (+0.1%).
Finally, over the last 10 years, Oneida County has seen a slight increase in
real income (+2.2%) while in Herkimer County it has remained practically
unchanged (-0.2%). To get a better visual of these patterns, click on the chart
below.
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| Click to Enlarge |
These are the types of analysis
we anticipate incorporating into our
next retrospective for the region. If you have questions about this project or
have a specific topic you’d like to see covered, please drop me a line at dmiller@ocgov.net .
