North Dakota’s per-capita income jumped 78% in the past 12 years, largely due to its fossil fuel boom. Imagine the impact at the national level if Washington stopped blocking energy development.
North Dakota has become a land of prosperity since 2000, when its per-capita income was $25,592, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Last year it hit $45,747.
In energy-rich North Dakota, per-capita income growth of 78.7% is more than twice the national average of 37.4% over the last dozen years, and its per-capita income rank has risen from 38th in the nation to ninth.
North Dakota has the highest per-capita income in the BEA’s Plains region and exceeds the national average by more than $4,000.
While the nation staggers through a sluggish, jobless recovery, North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.3%. The jobless rate in Williston, the core of the state’s oil patch, which is fed by the Bakken Formation, is impossibly low at less than 1%.
The boom is happening across all of the state’s industries, but it’s the oil and gas sectors that are primarily stoking the fortunes. North Dakota is now the fourth-leading oil producer in the country, having passed Louisiana, and is on track to soon pass California for third.
The federal government is the enemy of prosperity and freedom, it should be appropriately dealt with.