Thinking Arizona
Facts to Inform the Public Discourse
Earnings Contribution of Manufacturing Declines
December 1, 2011
– Thinking Arizona graphic by Tony Bustos
Total per capita earnings are higher for the U.S. as a whole than for Arizona. But indexes show that, since 1990, earnings for the state and the country have changed by virtually the same percentages. (The earnings figures are adjusted for inflation.)
The indexes also are useful for showing the rise and fall of individual sectors of the economy.
Manufacturing earnings, adjusted for inflation and indexed on a per capita basis, stayed steady from 1990 to 2000 for both Arizona and the U.S. In lockstep, they then began a steady decline over the course of the last decade.
Construction, meanwhile, plays a larger role in Arizona than the U.S. Indexes for both advanced prior to the end of the boom in 2006, but Arizona’s increase was much steeper.