Douglas County Per Capita Personal Income Rises in 2019

January 5, 2021

The U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis released its 2019 estimates of personal income for substate areas (counties and townships) in late November 2020.

Personal income includes all forms of income including earnings by place of work, dividends, interest and rent, and government transfer payments (largely Social Security and Medicare). Total personal income is then divided by population to create per capita personal income (PCPI).

Douglas County’s inflation adjusted per capita personal income increased $523 (1.3%) to reach $42,334 in 2019 while the statewide and national figures rose $758 (1.4%) and $895 (1.6%), respectively. 

Douglas County’s total personal income grew by approximately $176 million in 2019 to reach $4.7 billion, a 3.9% increase over 2018. When the data are adjusted for inflation, however, total personal income increased by $94 million, or 2.0%.
The components of personal income for Douglas County show that 47% is from earnings; 19% is from dividends, interest, and rent; and 34% is from transfer payments mostly in the form of Social Security and Medicare. Douglas County has a high portion of personal income from transfer payments compared with the U.S. and Oregon, which are 17% and 19%, respectively – an indication of a relatively large retirement age population.
Relative to other areas, Douglas County’s per capita personal income remained at 80% of the statewide and to 75% of the U.S. figures. Douglas County’s 2019 per capita personal income ranks 29^th among Oregon’s 36 counties.

More information, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on statewide personal income, is available in the article Oregon's Per Capita Personal Income 2019.