Orange County Benchmarking and Target Industry Analysis: Spotlight

Figure 14: Per Capita Personal Income of Orange County, Indiana and the U.S., 1970 to 2009
$45,000
$40,000
$35,000
$30,000
$25,000
$20,000
$15,000
$10,000
$5,000
$-
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Indiana Orange United States
To better understand the composition of personal income, Table 8 breaks down the components
comprising the bulk of personal income. Orange County is fairly similar to the state and nation in all
categories except personal current transfer receipts.
� Net earnings by place of residence (which includes wages earned at the workplace adjusted for
government and social insurance contributions and residence) comprises the largest share of
personal income. Wages and salaries are the primary component of net earnings, followed by
supplements to wages and salaries (i.e., employer contributions to employee pension and
insurance funds and for government social insurance).
� The smallest major category of income for all areas was dividends, interest and rent, comprising
less than one‐fifth of each area’s personal income.
� The remainder of personal income is derived from personal current transfer receipts, which are
government payments to individuals for which no services are performed. Consistent with local
community leaders’ intuitions, Orange County residents are more dependent on such
government payments than are residents of the state and nation, primarily for medical benefits
and retirement and disability insurance benefits (43.7 and 35.3 percent of current transfer
receipts, respectively). The 27.8 percent of personal income coming from government payments
might help explain recurring themes in the area such as the receipt of free or subsidized lunches
in the county schools (51 percent in 2010), common perceptions that local citizens want “hand‐
outs,” and the categorization of the county as being one of the poorest in the state.
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