State’s Salad Days Help Rich, Few Others Figures Show That Growth Is Filling The Coffers Of The Upper Crust; The Rest Aren’t Even Treading Water

Idaho’s expanding economy has been the envy of most other states for a decade, and of most of its own residents, for that matter.

That’s because the financial advantages being created by Idaho’s dramatic growth in jobs and personal income are largely going to the state’s wealthiest inhabitants.

The result is a widening gap between Idaho’s economic captains and their soldiers.

“We are constantly trying to find ways to get higher-income jobs into Idaho,” Gov. Phil Batt said, acknowledging the imbalance. “But it’s a slow process.”

Based on State Tax Commission figures, the average annual income of the middle 60 percent of Idaho workers - over 250,000 - rose just under 18 percent between 1990 and 1995, the most recent statistics available. The average increased from $19,400 to nearly $22,900.

Over the same five years, the top 20 percent of taxpayers saw their average annual income soar more than 44 percent - from just over $60,000 to $87,000.

“This rapid growth in Idaho has probably favored high-income people more,” Boise State University economics professor Charles Skoro said. “But just about everything that happens tends to favor high-income people because they’re able to insulate themselves, where people farther down the income scale can’t.”

Diversification of the state economy and the rising prominence of high technology have only further concentrated the wealth in a minority of hands. The richest 20 percent of taxpayers accounted for 45.4 percent of the adjusted gross income reported in 1990. By 1995, that rose to 53.6 percent.

At the same time, that middle 60 percent saw its share decline from 42.7 percent to 41.5 percent.

The disparity is aggravated by inflation. According to First Security Bank, the cost of living nationally rose 19 percent from 1990 through 1995; in Boise, inflation during that period was more than 24 percent.

In either case, it was more than enough to wipe out the average income increase for the heart of Idaho’s workers, while those at the top of the income scale covered rising prices with plenty to spare.

“Everything looks rosy,” Salvation Army Capt. Tom Petersen said. “But when you scratch the surface, you have the same problems you have in east L.A.”

Although Idaho has been ranking at or near the top in nonfarm job growth, the bulk of the new jobs - 120,000 since the decade began - has been in the typically lower-paying service sector. In fact, 100,000 of those jobs were in services, notwithstanding the dramatic growth in the high-tech sector.

Worse, fully 9 percent of the labor force is holding down only part-time work.

“Even though the employment may look really good, the amount of money that those people are making - and they’re working two and three jobs sometimes - isn’t getting them out of poverty,” said Ken Hagley of Kamiah, chairman of the board of the Idaho Hunger Action Council.

The council, which provides food to low-income households through gleaning and other programs, was helping about 280 families in 1990, Hagley said. Today, the caseload has hit 1,500 and, “We could probably double that number if we had the capacity.

“There’s a greater demand than we can serve, and it’s growing,” Hagley said.

Of the necessities, housing may present the biggest problem. Costs have risen more than 40 percent in Boise since 1990 and that situation is being repeated in other growing areas of the state, creating a crisis in affordability.

“In this time of quote-unquote prosperity, the getting-the-job is there while they have no place to live,” Petersen said. “For the income in this area, I consider the rents to be way out of line. It’s almost gouging.”

Skoro said the increasing role of technology in the economy is a major reason for the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. It provides some good-paying jobs, but at a cost of an overall reduction in employment.

Batt welcomes the new, better-paying jobs, “but we also have to be concerned with the low-income workers, too.”

In addition to Commerce Department efforts to lure new jobs into Idaho, Batt initiated a multimillion-dollar fund, financed by business, to train workers in the specific skills potential new employers would need.

And he has a special task force looking into the problem of affordable housing, with an eye toward possible legislative action this winter.

The administration also has been working to improve conditions on Indian reservations and to beef up education and training opportunities for both the tribes and the state’s comparatively large Hispanic minority.

“All these things will pay dividends in having these folks eventually earn higher incomes,” Batt said.