Indiana s current rate of personal income growth is consistent with recent and long-term trends for the state and the region. The five-state Great Lakes region has seen a decline in its share of the nation s income in each of the past three decades. See figure 1. The intense global competition beginning in the 1970s within the manufacturing sector has hit both the Great Lakes and Mideast regions particularly hard. See figure 2.
Personal income is made up of earnings, returns to wealth, and transfer payments.
See figure 3. To understand Indiana s earnings growth, consider figure 4 below, where the various sectors of the economy are shown in descending order of importance to the state. In terms of growth, Indiana earnings have increased faster than the nation in two of the eight sectors shown. Indiana also grew more slowly in finance, insurance and real estate and in transportation and public utilities.