Bureau of Economic Analysis / U.S. Department of Commerce
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Idaho posted above average personal income growth from 2010 to 2011, thanks largely to increases in farm earnings. Other top industries, in terms of earnings growth, included health care and professional services. The construction industry had the most notable earnings losses.
Idaho’s personal income grew 5.4 percent from 2010 to 2011. That’s higher than the national average of 5.1 percent, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report issued today.
Per capita personal income growth was not as substantial, rising from $31,897 in 2010 to $33,326 last year. That 4.5 percent increase put Idaho slightly ahead of the national rate of 4.3 percent.
In cities like Boise and Las Vegas, the housing market turned down so sharply that houses were left half-finished.
Anyone anxious for a housing market turnaround got a bit of dreary news today, in the form of the most recent Case-Shiller Index report. It found that home values fell 3.8 percent nationally between January 2011 and January of this year, a greater decrease than expected.
In the West, though, there has been a trickle of good news lately. The Wall Street Journal recently singled out Phoenix for its strides toward recovery. Last week’s new home sales numbers showed the nation’s housing market to be “wobbly,” as the Los Angeles Times put it, but in the West, new home sales were up 8 percent. Continue Reading →
“[T]he Boise Fire Department’s hazardous materials team determined that no hazardous chemicals were released by the explosion. Employees in the building have been allowed to return to work.
One person suffered a minor cut to the arm, two people had ringing in their ears and another inhaled dust from the explosion. Several others workers who inhaled dust were being evaluated. No one was transported to the hospital.” – IdahoStatesman.com
INL's Materials and Fuels Complex in southeastern Idaho.
The Idaho Department of Labor will receive a $1,045,000 federal grant to assist Idaho National Laboratory workers who lost their jobs late last year. About 600 people were laid off by three INL contractors, according to Department of Labor spokesman Bob Fick. The department estimates about 175 of those workers will seek help through its field offices.
The funding is provided by the U.S. Department of Labor through what’s called a National Emergency Grant. The grant money can assist laid-off workers in many ways. It can be used for education or on-the-job training, for example, or even for the cost of getting to an out-of-state interview. “It depends on the people who take advantage of it,” Fick says. “It will be tailored to them.”
This is the fifth National Emergency Grant the Idaho Department of Labor has received since the start of 2010. Spending from those grants totals more than $5.5 million, so far. Fick says INL workers have already begun to search out assistance through the state Department of Labor.
Maggie Clark talks with customers at a recent event in Nampa, Idaho.
Earlier today we introduced you to Maggie Clark, an independent salesperson for the wickless candle maker Scentsy. Clark says she earns about $1,200 a month on her business. That is well above the median income for someone in the direct selling industry.
The Direct Selling Association, an industry trade group, says the median annual income is $2,400. That equals about $200 a month.
“There certainly are people who make the equivalent of a full-time income through direct selling,” says DSA spokesperson Amy Robinson. “But by and large people are looking for supplemental income.”
Robinson says most people work less than ten hours a week at their direct selling business.
Maggie Clark set up a booth to sell Scentsy at a recent cheerleading and dance competition in Nampa, Idaho.
Many Idaho companies issued a fair number of pink slips during the recession. But Meridian-based Scentsy didn’t.
Instead, the wickless-candle maker grew. It’s ranked among the country’s most promising companies by business magazines like Forbes and Inc.com. In just seven years, Scentsy has become a multimillion dollar enterprise.
Selling Scentsy
Maggie Clark started selling Scentsy products three years ago, just as the company started taking off. She recently set up a sales booth at a cheerleading and dance competition in Nampa. Continue Reading →
When I started researching the direct sales industry and one of Idaho’s newest direct sales companies, Scentsy, I wanted to find out if that model of selling at parties and events does particularly well in Idaho.
The Direct Selling Association has this handy map that shows the percent of sales by region. Idaho is part of the western region, which accounted for more than a quarter of direct sales in 2010. That puts the western region in second place, behind the South, for percent of total sales.
So are people in the West and South just more likely to go to home parties? Are we particularly drawn to certain products? Yes and no. Continue Reading →
The Idaho Department of Labor reports February’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has fallen for the seventh straight month to 8.0 percent.
The jobless rate has steadily ticked downward, mostly one-tenth of a percent at a time. It’s the lowest monthly rate since September 2009.
Still, the department reports 62,500 Idahoans are still out of work. That doesn’t include the number of people who’ve stopped looking for a job or who consider themselves underemployed. Continue Reading →
The Queen Mary 2 sails toward Long Beach, California.
An Idaho economic consulting and modeling firm’s latest report details the five industries that have grown 40 percent or more since 2007.
Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., a Moscow-based firm, says the sector with the greatest rate of growth since 2007 was the cruise ship industry. That growth focused heavily in coastal states, including Washington and California.
One industry listed that has impacted Idaho is translation and interpretation services. According to EMSI, that industry more than doubled from 2007 to 2011.
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