Midwest Hits Bottom For Income: Southern Incomes Surpass Midwest
The U.S. Census Bureau reported yesterday that the South, traditionally the Iowest-income section of the country, climbed past the Midwest in average after-tax household income in 1984.</br></br>In the nation as a whole, the bureau found that the average U.S. household had after-tax income of $21,564 in 1984 after paying $6,400 in federal and state income taxes, Social Security taxes and property taxes. That figure was 2.7 percent greater than in 1983 after adjusting for inflation.</br></br>The figures showed that after-fax household income was highest in the West ($23,038), second in the Northeast ($22,001), followed by the South ($20,951), with the Midwest last ($20,865).</br></br>In 1980, when the bureau began calculating after-tax household income, it computed the figures for 1974 as well, and found that the South was $2,100 below the MidwestÛÓnot surprising because the South, with little manufacturing and a traditional low-income rural economy, had long been viewed as the poorest section.</br></br>By then, however, the SouthÛªs economy had started growing: meanwhile, the Midwest has been hit with a series of economic problems resulting from a weakening of heavy manufacturing industries. <