Report: Idaho workers’ earnings led nation in ’17

A recent report says Idaho led the nation last year in workers’ earnings growth.

But the Idaho Statesman says Idaho’s ranking as having the biggest workers’ pay increase in the nation isn’t really all that impressive, given that Idaho workers still make well below their counterparts in every neighboring state.

The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis says Idaho workers increased 5.3 percent last year, the fastest rate in the nation.

But the Idaho Statesman says the problem is the statistics released measure by overall earnings, not earnings per worker. And because Idaho added 24,880 jobs in 2017, wages paid to those workers bulked up the earnings growth.

The average Idaho worker earned $778 in the third quarter of 2017, the latest for which data is available. That’s $40,456 last year in wages and salaries. An Idaho worker still makes less than the average worker in every bordering state.