Feb. 19, 1998
NORTHEAST KANSAS ECONOMY SHOWS MIXED PERFORMANCE
LAWRENCE -- The northeast Kansas job picture is mixed. University of Kansas research shows that vigorous job growth has occurred this decade even as personal income has remained well below the national average.
Unless you live in Johnson County, that is.
Robert H. Glass, research economist at the KU Institute for Public Policy and Business Research, said, "Only one of 14 northeast Kansas counties is doing better than the U.S. average in terms of per capita personal income.
"Johnson County's a show-stopper."
An article by Glass on the northeast Kansas economy appears in an issue of Kansas Business Review, published by IPPBR. The issue is due out Feb. 20.
"Throughout the 1990s, Kansas has had better employment growth than the U.S.," Glass said, "and northeast Kansas employment growth has been better than the state's."
If '98 forecasts by IPPBR are correct, then since 1991, U.S. employment will have grown 13.6 percent; Kansas employment, 18.4 percent; and northeast Kansas employment, 23.4 percent.
That's the good news.
When it comes to countywide per-capita personal income compared with U.S. per-capita personal income, only Johnson County has good news.
In 1995, the most recent year for which there are complete data, the per capita income of Johnson Countians was 42 percent higher than that of other U.S. residents.
The second richest county in northeast Kansas that year was Shawnee, where per capita income was 98 percent of the national average.
Three other northeast Kansas counties finished in the 80 percent-of-the-national-average range. Nemaha County was at the 85 percent level, Jackson County at 84.5 and Miami County at 82 percent.
The other nine counties, in descending order, were Jefferson County, at 79.5 percent; Douglas County, 78.4 percent; Brown, 77.5; Atchison, 76.4; Leavenworth, 75.5; Franklin, 74; Wyandotte, 73.5; Doniphan, 72.5; and Osage, 69.7.
That Douglas County wages are so low and slow-growing seems strange, Glass said, given the high level of education among residents.
According to the 1990 census, 15 percent of the county's population older than 25 was constituted of people with doctorates, law degrees or medical degrees -- the same as Johnson County.
"But the people in Johnson County aren't confined to working in a university," Glass said. "When you work for the government, you're not going to make a lot of money."
Glass turned up "one other incredibly interesting fact" during his research. Two counties in the state, he said, probably deserve special respect among legislators: Johnson and Sedgwick.
Those two counties make up 28 percent of the state's population but pay a whopping 45 percent of all state income tax revenues.
"Legislators should be really nice to the people in those counties," he said, "because those people are paying a big chunk of their salaries."
-30-