In order to understand what is really going on in the Wyoming economy, we need to have accurate economic information about our state. This includes, of course, the trends and the scenarios that I often write about on this blog, but it is also important to have appropriate institutional facts about our economy.
One of those factoids has to do with the, so to speak, composition of our economy. The prevailing wisdom is that our state is entirely dominated by the minerals industry. There is no doubt that the minerals industry is important to our state, but a closer look at our economy reveals a more complicated picture.
It also reveals two troubling facts that help explain why our state government is in such deep fiscal trouble.
Before we get there, though, let us look at one of the major economic variables and what it can tell us about our state: personal income. If we want to get "close" to people's real-life personal finances and still maintain good analytical standards, personal income is the variable to study.