Personal income growth in the states

on

As Kansas debates whether to move forward with a new vision, especially in tax policy, we should examine how we have fared under the policies of recent decades.

The visualization below starts in 1994, the year Bill Graves was elected governor. That started a 16 year period of governance by moderate Republicans and Democrats, a period now promoted as a golden area of common sense government that has led to prosperity in Kansas.

But in the visualization below, where does Kansas rank in relation to some of our surrounding states? The answer is: Not well.

To see how your state compares with others in personal income growth, use the interactive visualization below. Click the check boxes to add or remove states. Use the slider to adjust the range of years. Click on state names in the legend below the chart to highlight one or more states’ data (Ctrl+click highlights more than one state.)

You may use the visualization below, or click here to open it in a new window, which may work better for some people. Data is from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA); visualization created by myself using Tableau Public.