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Private employees in all but one Indiana county make less than the national average wage and Hoosier workers earn just 83.3 cents for each dollar earned by their national counterparts, according to an analysis of employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Rachel Blakeman, the director of the Community Research Institute of Purdue University Fort Wayne, analyzed the federal agency’s quarterly report with a focus on annual wage data. She reported that for 91 of Indiana’s 92 counties, Hoosiers made less than the $70,343 national average.
“In short, we’re a state that works but we’re a state that works for less,” Blakeman said.
Analysis of wage data
Marion County is the only county to buck the trend this year, coming in at $70,834. But Blakeman noted the data only considers county of employment, not county of residence, meaning that commuters in surrounding counties boost Marion County’s wages.
“Historically, Indiana has underperformed on wages as it compares to the national average,” Blakeman said. “This year, we only have one county that is above the average and historically we’ve had a handful of counties.”
The statewide average was $58,604, ranging from Marion County’s high to a low of $36,559 in Union County.
However, many counties did have faster wage growth than the national average — and several counties had faster job growth — but not enough to catch up.
“We leapfrogged a little bit but the problem is that we’re so far behind,” Blakeman said.
The data does come with caveats, lacking demographic information and not distinguishing between part-time, full-time or seasonal employment.
“Occasionally, what we’ll see is in counties where they have a lot of workers who are part time or seasonal, that you can see that their wages are lower as a result,” Blakeman said. “But, generally speaking, that is not a concern.”
Additionally, because Indiana has more county government units per capita than other states, the Hoosier State’s counties tend to have smaller populations.
Response from IEDC
The Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) declined an interview, but sent a statement concerning wage growth in recent years, saying the organization was “laser focused on increasing wages.”
The quasi-public organization regularly touts anticipated company expansions throughout the state, including anticipated wages — although some don’t pan out and don’t deliver the promised high-paying jobs.
In an annual report published in January, the IEDC said it had secured more than 24,000 new jobs with an average hourly wage of $34.71 — an IEDC record for “expected” wages.
“… Since 2021, we’ve made amazing strides and executed a bold vision that local partners across the state have leaned into, resulting in record-breaking wage commitments,” the IEDC said. “In 2023, we’re on track to secure even higher average wages for jobs that will be created between now and the next few years.”
“The IEDC has conversations every day with future-focused businesses looking to launch, locate and grow in Indiana. We currently have over $100 billion worth of capital investment in our pipeline from target industries that provide high-paying jobs,” the organization continued. “Indiana is competing against the best and securing economic wins that drive wages up, and we’ll continue to focus on securing high-wage jobs for all Hoosiers.”
Takeaway moving forward
But Blakeman said it isn’t simply a matter of 100 more high-paying jobs to change a county’s trajectory. She noted that a lifetime of low wages also means that Hoosiers will receive less in Social Security benefits when they retire.
And Indiana’s low-cost-of-living doesn’t offset the state’s low wages.
“Our cost of living is below average but when we compare cost of living against wages … we are a very expensive place to live because our wages are not competitive with our cost of living,” she said.
The reliance on low-skilled jobs in manufacturing or warehousing have made the state less competitive and depressed wages, which Blakeman said makes talent attraction difficult. Business and state leaders have bemoaned Indiana’s low educational attainment, saying it hindered their efforts to bring in new businesses.
“We’ve put a significant stake in the state (for) jobs that don’t need bachelor’s degrees,” she said. “(But) bachelor’s degrees command a premium in the workforce and actually raise wages for everyone.”
Indiana Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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Maybe State Legislators should focus less on reducing the State’s already-low business taxes and focus more on reducing/eliminating personal income taxes. Witness the growth and success in States with no personal income tax (FL, TX, TN). Nashville is crushing Indy over the past 5 years and the pace is only increasing.
I don’t get why people believe Indy is leading Nashville. Nashville is rated in an actual tier for world class cities whereas Indianapolis is included in the lowest footnote equivalent.
Maybe Indiana’s state legislators should focus less on taxes and more on spending tax revenue on providing Pre-K education, improving elementary and secondary education, and getting serious about preparing young people for the careers of tomorrow rather than the careers of the prior century.
Guaranteed that the vast majority of higher earners working in Marion County received a better and higher education than 95-percent of higher earners in the rural counties that lag the national average income. Education is the key to success. Why does our state leadership fail to grasp this? Why do they fail to do anything about it?
Brent, we don’t have an education system anymore. You can’t apply 2006-era solutions to 2023-era dysfunction.
But it always so entertaining watching urban citizens flout their unearned moral, intellectual, and cultural superiority over those hayseeds. The city/country dynamic is truly working wonders for Illinois. A single little smear in the northeast of the state is bringing the entire rest of it to its knees.
Are you going to blame Chicago for the failings of rural Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kentucky, too?
Rural America – and the rural Midwest in particular – has been faltering for a long time. They aren’t economically viable places to live. Even the majority of people leaving cities with their own set of problems – like Chicago – move to other large metropolitan area rather than move rural communities.
Rural America is not economically viable anymore.
Chicago is the economic engine that powers Illinois state revenues, just as Indianapolis is the economic engine for Indiana. The statistics don’t lie.
No Robert, I’m not going to blame Chicago for other states’ rural failings. Chicago is denigrating the fortunes of Illinois well enough. It doesn’t need to sweep its surrounding states into the vortex.
Huge swathes of Chicago/Detroit/Indianapolis/Milwaukee/Louisville “aren’t economically viable places to live”, within their city limits. Should we write off cities? Even I’m not willing to do that. But there’s growing evidence that cities and the surrounding state aren’t willing to find compromises, which in turn seems to hurt both the big cities AND the rural areas in places like Illinois. They need balance. But in places like Chicago, the city so overwhelms the rest of the population that it fundamentally steers the whole state in a single direction. There’s no reason to expect rural Illinois, with its sparse population and limited services, should manage to prosper with business taxes so high. For all we can claim rural Indiana “has no economic viability” there is no place as poor in Indiana as the southernmost counties in IL. And plenty of marginal third-tier cities in IL make Marion Indiana look like paradise.
And while many are moving to the suburbs (which I hope to remain more politically balanced), to pretend that all of rural America is just hopeless nowheresville neglects the fact that the collar counties of any big city–including Indy–were rural America 50-60 years, behind the times, and nobody deemed that Hamilton County would someday become one of the 50 wealthiest counties in America. Americans have shown an astonishing willingness to jump ship when they see it start to sink.
The statistics don’t lie, Brent: businesses are pulling out of Chicago city limits and moving to the suburbs…or they’re leaving Illinois/California/New York altogether, and moving to states whose business climate is less driven by a single large city monopolizing the politics.
It never ceases to get old watching the smug moral/intellectual/cultural superiority being articulated by adherents to the same party that used that as a tool to treat people they deemed their inferiors in the 1960s in a similar fashion. And thought themselves morally righteous as well.