Following are visualizations of data. Many are interactive and created using Tableau Public. In some cases I’ve recorded myself using the visualization to tell a story, and all you have to do is watch.
Following is data regarding departures from the Wichita airport for 2013. Of note is the decline of flights to Atlanta. Data is from Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Use the visualization below, or click here to open it in a new window, which may work best.
Why do Kansans pay taxes, including sales tax on food, to fund millions in subsidy to a company that is experiencing a sustained streak of record profits?
As the Wichita City Council prepares to authorize funding for Southwest Airlines, it’s worth taking a look at updated statistics regarding the airport. The agenda item the council will consider is available here.
Passengers
Wichita Airport Passengers, Monthly, All Carriers vs. Airtran/Southwest, through May 2014The city has pointed to the arrival of Southwest last June as a game-changer for the airport. It’s true that passenger counts have increased. In the nearby chart I present monthly passenger counts, enplanements only, at the Wichita airport for all carriers and for Southwest separately. I’ve treated Southwest as a continuation of AirTran, as Southwest started service at the same time AirTran stopped, and Southwest is receiving a similar subsidy. I show monthly traffic, and also a 12-month moving average to smooth out the extreme monthly variations in passenger traffic. (Click on charts for larger versions.)
Of note is that while the Southwest passenger count is rising, it started from a low position. Also, the count has not risen to the level that AirTran experienced in the middle of the last decade and as recently as 2011.
Flights
Wichita Airport Passengers, Monthly, Compared to National, through April 2014Wichita Airport Monthly Departures, through April 2014Wichita Airport Monthly Departures, Weekdays Only, through April 2014Considering the number of flights leaving the Wichita airport, the recent trend is up. This is a departure from recent trends. Although the number of available flights nationally has been slowly falling, it was falling faster for Wichita. That trend, for now, is reversed, although the number of flights in Wichita is far below the level of a decade ago.
The number of flights is an important statistic. Greater attention is given to fares, but for many travelers, especially business travelers, an available flight at any price is paramount. Last year at this time I wrote “A program designed to bring low air fares to Wichita appears to meet that goal, but the unintended and inevitable consequences of the program are not being recognized. In particular, the number of flights available at the Wichita airport continues to decline.” So it is good news that the number of flights has risen.
Wichita compared to the nation
Wichita Airport Statistics, through 2013Looking at passengers through the end of 2013, Wichita has now experienced an uptick. Passenger traffic in Wichita had been relatively level at a time that national traffic was rising. The number of available seats on flights has started to rise in Wichita, while nationally the trend has been level the past several years.
Load factor — the percent of available seats that were sold — is rising in Wichita, as it is nationally.
The last set of four charts is from an interactive visualization I prepared using data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Click here to open the visualization in a new window. You may select any number of airports for display on the charts.
Southwest profits
Recently Southwest reported record high profits for the quarter ending in June. The company said that net income was $485 million, which it said represented the fifth consecutive quarter of record profits.
We might ask this question: Why do Kansans across the state pay taxes, including sales tax on food, to fund millions in subsidy to a company that is experiencing a sustained streak of record profits?
Let’s ask critics of current Kansas economic policy if they’re satisfied with the Kansas of recent decades.
Critics of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and his economic policies have pounced on slow job growth in Kansas as compared to other states.
Private sector employment growth in the states, Kansas highlighted. Click for larger version.The nearby illustration shows private sector job growth in the states during the period of the Graves/Sebelius/Parkinson regimes. This trio occupied the governor’s office from 1994 to 2011. Kansas is the dark line.
At the end of this period, Kansas is just about in the middle of the states. But notice that early in this period, the line for Kansas is noticeably nearer the top than the bottom. As time goes on, however, more states move above Kansas in private sector job creation.
Private sector employment growth in the states, year-over-year change, Kansas highlighted. Click for larger version.The second illustration shows the one-year change in private sector job growth, Kansas again highlighted. Note there are some years during the first decade of this century where Kansas was very near the bottom of the states in this measure.
Some Kansas newspaper editorialists and candidates for office advocate for a return to the policies of Graves/Sebelius/Parkinson. Let’s ask them these questions: First, are you aware of the poor record of Kansas? Second, do you want to return to job growth like this?
How to use the visualization.I’ve gathered and prepared jobs data in an interactive visualization. You may click here to open the visualization in a new window and use it yourself. Data is from Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. This data series is the Current Employment Statistics (CES), which is designed to measure employment, hours, and earnings with significant industrial and geographic detail. More information about his data series is at Understanding the employment measures from the CPS and CES survey.
Spending by Kansas state and local governments has grown faster than in most other states.
State and local direct general expenditures, per capita, growth since 1991. Kansas is the dark line.Using data gathered by Tax Policy Center at Brookings Institution, I’ve prepared an interactive visualization of state spending trends over time. Click here to open the visualization in a new window. You may click on any number of states to highlight them. (Use Ctrl+click to add states after the first.) You may also choose “in or out” of the set of states near Kansas. Finally, you can select a range of years. This data is indexed, meaning that states start at the same level, so that relative changes in spending may be seen.
Data is from State & Local Government Finance Data Query System. http://slfdqs.taxpolicycenter.org/pages.cfm. The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. Data from U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, Government Finances, Volume 4, and Census of Governments (1977-2011). Date of Access: (29-Jul-2013).
The states vary widely in levels of state government and local government employees and payroll costs, calculated on a per-person basis. Kansas ranks high in these costs, nationally and among nearby states.
Two states have annual payroll costs of over $4,000, calculated by taking the total payroll cost and dividing by population. Many states operate on little more than half that. Only ten states have total government employee payroll costs greater than Kansas, on a per-person basis. (This does not include federal government employees.)
When looking at a selection of nearby states, we see that only Nebraska has higher payroll costs for state and local government employees, when calculated on a per-person basis using the state’s population.
This data is from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2012, the most recent year available. Using Tableau Public, I created an interactive visualization. I show the full-time equivalent employees divided by the population for each state. Also, the annual payroll divided by population. (The Census Bureau supplies payroll data for only one month, the month of March, so I multiply by 12 to produce an approximation of annual payroll cost.)
Using the visualization: Sorting and selecting.There are two series of data, “Local government” and “State government.” The first series refers to the number of local government employees in each state, such as city and county employees. The second series refers to the number of state government employees in each state. Check boxes allow you to include either or both series in the chart.
By clicking on column headers or footers (“State,” “Annual payroll per person,” Full-time equivalent employees per person”) you can sort by these values.
Kansas state government collects more tax revenue than most surrounding states. Additionally, severance taxes are a minor contribution to collections, even in Texas.
Note: this visualization has been updated. Click here for the most recent version.
The data considers only tax collections by state government. It does not include cities, counties, school districts, or the many other taxing jurisdictions that states may have formed. I have computed this data on a per-person basis. Data is for 2013.
State tax collections for Kansas and some nearby states. Click for a larger version.Considering total tax collections by state governments, note that Kansas, at $2,633 per person per year, is only slightly below the average for all states. For a group of nearby states, Arkansas and Iowa have higher state tax collections than Kansas. Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, and Missouri are lower.
In some cases, state tax collections are substantially lower. Texas collects $1,955 per person per year, which is 25.75 percent less than Kansas.
Using the visualization.Of note are severance taxes, which are taxes collected based on the extraction of oil, gas, and sometimes minerals. Kansas has a severance tax that produces, on a per person basis, $26 per year. In Texas the same tax produces $176 per person per year, and in Oklahoma, $134.
I’ve created an interactive visualization of this data that you may use. Click here to open the visualization in a new window.
The performance of Kansas in entrepreneurial activity is not high, compared to other states.
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation prepares the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. According to the Foundation, “The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity is a leading indicator of new business creation in the United States. Capturing new business owners in their first month of significant business activity, this measure provides the earliest documentation of new business development across the country.”
Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, showing Kansas highlighted against neighboring states. Click for larger version.As shown by the data, Kansas ranks low in entrepreneurial activity. This is true when Kansas is compared to the nation, and also when compared to a group of nearby states.
I’ve prepared two visualizations that present this data. One holds data for all states. Click here to open it in a new window.
Instructions for using the visualization of Kauffman data. Click for larger version.A second visualization presents the data for Kansas and some nearby states. Click here to open it in a new window.
Despite its problematic nature, per capita income in Wichita is used as a benchmark for the economy. It’s not moving in the right direction. As Wichita plans its future, leaders need to recognize and understand its recent history.
One of the benchmarks used by Visioneering Wichita to measure the growth of the Wichita-area economy may not be the best statistic, and its interpretation requires caution.
The measure is per-capita personal income. Specifically, the benchmark goal of Visioneering is “Stop the 21-year decline of Wichita per capita income as a percentage of U.S. per capita income before 2011. By 2024 exceed the annual average of Omaha, Tulsa, Kansas City and Oklahoma City.” (Note that per capita measurements are problematic. See the section at the end of this article.)
Wichita per capita income compared to the nation. Click for larger version.How has the Wichita metropolitan area performed on this benchmark? What are the trends? I’ve plotted per capita income for the United States and the Wichita MSA, along with the ratio of Wichita to the nation. The leaders of Visioneering are right to be concerned about the direction of the Wichita economy relative to the country. Since about 1980, the trend of Wichita as compared to the country is that Wichita is not keeping up, and is falling behind. During the decade of the 1980s, per capita income in Wichita fell below that of the nation. Wichita per capita income had been higher, but since then has mostly been falling farther behind.
Visioneering peers
One of the Visioneering concepts is the idea of peers. The cities Visioneering Wichita selected as Wichita peers are Omaha, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Oklahoma City. It’s useful to compare Wichita with these cities, and also with a few others that are comparable to Wichita and interesting for other reasons.
Wichita per capita income growth compared to peers. Click for larger version.Nearby are two snapshots from an interactive visualization of per capita income growth. Wichita is the dark line in each of these charts. As you can see, by the last year of available data (2012), Wichita is near the bottom in performance. It wasn’t always that way. In early years, Wichita did well.
Per capita income growth in Wichita and peers, annual rate of growth. Click for larger version.The interactive visualization holds data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and was created using Tableau Public. Click here to open it in a new window so that you may form your own conclusions.
We’ve had a plan
The current stance of Wichita civic leaders is that we need a plan to create jobs. But we’ve had plans, with Visioneering being just one.
These leaders also tell us that Wichita can’t compete with other cities in economic development because Wichita’s budget is too small. But as I show here, when Wichita leaders complain about a small budget for incentives, these officials don’t include all incentives that are available and regularly used. Not nearly all.
Per capita measurements
Per capita measures are problematic. They are not meaningless, but interpretation requires caution. Some of the issues with per capita measures are explained by Dave Trabert of Kansas Policy Institute:
Per-capita income is a bad measurement because it rewards cities that are losing people due to domestic migration and punishes those who are gaining.
Even without the per-capita issue, personal income is not a clean measure. Personal income can increase because federal transfer payments grew, employers had to spend more to provide health care benefits, and other items that have nothing to do with measuring relative economic growth.
Better measurements would be private sector jobs, private sector GDP and private sector wage and salary disbursements. Unless the point of Visioneering is to grow government, the measurements should only be of private sector elements.
Further, the residents of a state can be better off even if that state’s per-capita or median income decreases. If, for example, 50,000 low income agriculture workers move into Texas, those workers’ incomes almost surely rise (or else they would not have moved there). The residents and business owners in Texas who benefit from their labor services are better off, and the final result is that no one is worse off. But the per-capita income in Texas may actually go down if the low income agricultural workers earn less than the state’s average wage.
