Mainers’ incomes picked up during the April-June quarter, rising 1.5 percent, matching the national average increase and putting the state second in New England.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis said Tuesday that Maine’s increase in personal income ranked 28th nationally, up from the first three months of the year, when personal income in the state grew by a revised 0.6 percent (up from an original estimate of 0.5 percent) and the state ranked in the bottom quarter nationally in income growth.

In Maine, net earnings (essentially wages) grew by 1.4 percent in the second quarter, and property income (dividends, interest and rents) grew 1.6 percent. The BEA said the biggest driver in incomes nationally was the property income category, with a jump of 1.8 percent after lackluster growth of 0.2 percent in the first quarter.

In Maine, the biggest increase among the broad categories of income was in personal transfer receipts, which includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and veterans benefits payments. That category grew 1.7 percent in the second quarter.

In the first quarter, Maine was one of only a handful of states to record a decline in transfer receipts, which some economists attributed to Gov. Paul LePage’s decision to forgo an expansion of Medicaid. Expanding the health care program for poor Mainers would have brought in about $300 million in federal reimbursements this year.

At that time, LePage said the personal transfer receipts category covered payments that were “welfare, pure and simple,” which prompted the governor’s political opponents to charge that he was equating Social Security and Medicare, which people pay into as they work, with welfare.

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LePage came up with his own figures for personal income by eliminating the personal transfer receipts and said that, using that calculation, Mainers’ incomes grew by 0.8 percent, slightly higher than the national average for the first three months of the year. The release also pointed out that, using the state’s formula on personal income, Maine’s growth was in line with other New England states.

For the second quarter of this year, eliminating personal transfer receipts from the calculations means Mainers’ personal incomes would have risen 1.1 percent, near the bottom among the states.

Calls and emails to Adrienne Bennett, LePage’s press secretary, were not returned Tuesday. Julie Rabinowitz, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Labor, said Tuesday afternoon that Bennett had asked her to respond for the administration.

Rabinowitz said ranking the states in terms of income growth is “irrelevant” because the most important finding from the BEA report is that Maine incomes grew.

“Did we grow, yes or no?” she said. “We can’t control what happens in other states.”

In New England, Vermont posted the biggest income increase in the second quarter, rising 1.7 percent from the first three months of the year. New Hampshire matched Maine’s 1.5 percent increase; Massachusetts and Rhode Island each increased 1.4 percent and Connecticut lagged in the region, with a 1.3 percent increase.

North Dakota, where workers are reaping the benefit of an energy boom, posted the largest increase nationally, with incomes rising 2.7 percent. New York and Alaska were last, posting increases of 1.1 percent.

The BEA also revised downward its previous estimate on income growth in 2013, saying Mainers’ personal incomes rose 2.0 percent last year, instead of the 2.2 percent it had estimated in March. The BEA said incomes grew nationally by 2.6 percent last year and at an average rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter.

 


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