Update 3: Per Capita Income Comparison Tool

The interactive tool below displays changes in per capita income (PCI) levels, relative to the United States, for the 50 most populous Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). For each MSA, per capita income is expressed as a ratio of MSA per capita income to U.S. per capita income. East-West Gateway research staff created the tool as part of a Where We Stand Update report on income.

How the Tool Works

The default setting shows the change in per capita income from 1969 to 2018. You can select different beginning and ending years by moving the handles within the slider. The U.S. PCI is always equal to one.

For each MSA, the smaller circle indicates the PCI of that MSA in the earlier time period (i.e. 1969 in the default setting). The larger dot indicates the relative PCI of the MSA as of the later time period (i.e. 2018 in the default setting). When the larger dot is at the top of the vertical line, the MSA PCI increased relative to the United States over the specified time period. When the larger dot is at the bottom of the vertical line, MSA PCI decreased relative to the United States.

For example, in 2018, the ratio of San Jose’s PCI to U.S. PCI was 1.95, meaning that San Jose’s PCI was nearly double (95 percent higher) the national average. The length of the vertical line indicates the amount of change between the two time periods. The vertical line for San Jose is relatively long compared to the other regions because the PCI in San Jose relative to that of the United States increased substantially over this time period.

As another example, the per capita income in 1969 for the St. Louis MSA was $4,101 and the per capita income for the United States was $3,931, resulting in a ratio of 1.04. This means the PCI in St. Louis was 4 percent higher than that of the United States. In 2018, the per capita income in St. Louis was 3 percent higher than that of the United States—$55,883 and $55,446, respectively (a ratio of 1.03). The line for St. Louis is very short, not even visible, because the per capita income in St. Louis was close to that of the United States in both time periods.

Per Capita Income Where We Stand Tables

The following tables rank St. Louis among the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas (referred to as the peer regions). The per capita income of $55,883 in St. Louis in 2018 ranked the region just above the United Stated and about in the middle among the peer regions. For each business cycle over the last 50 years, the change in per capita income tables shows how income levels changed in dramatically different ways across the country as the United States faced the era of inflation in the 1970s; the ascendance of finance in the 1980s; the “dot-com” bubble of the 1990s; the housing bubble and bust at the turn of the century; and the Great Recession and the recovery years.