Unemployment declines, income shrinks

April 22--Limestone County's per capita personal income has showed a recent decline, but the numbers are still better than state and national averages.

The data, released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, showed the county's income level dipped 0.9 percent from 2008 to 2009. The state rate change over the same period was 1.5 percent, while the national rate saw a 2.6 percent drop.

The BEA noted Limestone's PCPI in 2009 was $31,968, which ranked 14th in the state and was 96 percent of the state average of $33,411 and in the 81 percentile of the national average of $39,635.

In 1999, the PCPI of Limestone was $21,355 and ranked 14th in the state. The 1999-2009 average annual growth rate of PCPI was 4.1 percent, which was better than the state's growth of 3.8 percent and national growth of 3.4 percent.

In 2009, Limestone County had a total personal income of $2,511,795, which ranked 15th in the state and accounted for 1.6 percent of the total, an increase from the 1999 total of $1,385,517, which ranked 19th in the state.

Tom Hill, president of the Limestone Economic Development Association, attributed the one-year personal income drop to unemployment, which is slowly showing a rebound statewide.

"Our existing industries adjusted their headcount of employees during the recession to meet the amount of sales or production they were putting out the door," he said. "They re-engineered their facilities to make them more efficient and work with less people out of necessity."

However, he said industry is beginning to see increased volume and increased demand, which is bringing the unemployment level down.

Last week, the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations said the state's unemployment rate had dropped from 9.3 percent in February to 9.2 percent in March. The unemployment rate in Limestone County was 7.7 percent in March, compared to Madison (7.5 percent), Morgan (8.8 percent), Lauderdale (8 percent) and Lawrence (10.3 percent) counties.

Thursday afternoon, the Dow Jones hit its 2011 high of 12,483, despite a weaker-than-expected U.S. job report. The Labor Department said Thursday the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits fell last week to 403,000, though economists had expected a larger drop.

Hill said luring more industry to Limestone County is still a challenge, but he's received more inquiries over the past 30 days, which he believed to be a positive sign.

"We're ... into the start of the second quarter and we think there's a good bit of pent-up demand and there's some good corporate profits out there," he said. "They're making money on Wall Street and some (industries) need to be thinking about expansion. We're getting more activity and we hope that continues."

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