By Adam Millsap and Thomas Savidge

Virginia’s economy has steadily grown over time in spite of expenditures outpacing revenues each year since 2007. However, economic growth within the state is not evenly distributed geographically.

We examine Virginia’s revenue and expenditure trends, highlighting the sources of Virginia’s revenue and where it spends money. Then we discuss trends in state economic growth and compare that to recent personal income data by county.

Government Overview: Expenditures and Revenue

Figure 1 shows Virginia’s general spending and revenue trends over the past ten years. According to the Virginia Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), after adjusting for inflation, government expenditures have outpaced revenue every single year as seen in Figure 1 below (with the exception of 2006). The red column represents yearly expenditures while the stacked column represents revenues (the lighter shade of blue at the top represents revenue from “Federal Grants and Contracts” and the bottom darker shade of blue represents “Self-Funded Revenue”).

During the recession in 2009, expenditures climbed to $40 billion. Expenditures hovered around this amount until 2015 when they reached $41 billion. Then in 2016 expenditures dropped to just under $37 billion, a level last seen in 2006.

On the revenue side, the majority of Virginia’s government revenue is self-funded i.e. raised by the state. Self-funded revenue hovered between $24 and $29 billion over the ten year period.

However, revenue from federal contracts and grants steadily increased over time. There were two sharp increases in federal contracts and grants: 2008-2009 jumping from $8 to $10 billion and then 2009-2010 jumping from $10 to $13 billion. While there was a drop in federal contracts and grants from 2015-2016, the amount of revenue received from federal contracts and grants has not returned to its pre-2009 levels.

What is the state of Virginia spending its revenue on? According to the Virginia CAFR, state spending is separated into six major categories: General Government, Education, Transportation, Resources & Economic Development, Individual & Family Services, and Administration of Justice. The spending amounts from 2006-2016 (adjusted for inflation) are depicted in Figure 2.

As shown, the majority of spending over the ten year period was on Individual and Family Services. Prior to 2008, spending on Education closely tracked spending on Individual and Family services, but from 2008 to 2010 spending on the latter increased rapidly while spending on education declined. From 2010 through 2015 spending on Individual & Family Services was just over $15 billion per year. It dropped from 2015 to 2016, but so did spending on education, which maintained the gap between the two categories.

During the ten year period, Education spending hovered between $10 and $12 billion until it dropped to $9 billion in 2016. With the exception of Transportation (steadily climbing from 2010-2016), spending on each of the other categories remained below $5 billion per year and was fairly constant over this period.

Virginia Economic Growth & County Personal Income

After examining Virginia’s revenue and expenditures in Part 1, we now look at changes in Virginia’s economic growth and personal income at the county level. Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) shows that Virginia’s GDP hovered between $4 and $4.5 billion dollars (after adjusting for inflation), as shown in Figure 3 below. The blue columns depict real GDP (measured on the left vertical axis in billions of chained 2009 dollars) and the red line depicts percent changes in real GDP (measured on the right vertical axis).

While Virginia’s GDP increased from 2006-2015, we’ve condensed the scale of the left vertical axis to only cover $3.9-4.35 billion dollars in order to highlight the percent changes in Virginia’s economy. The red line shows that the percent change in real GDP over this period was often quite small—between 0% and 1% in all but two years.

Virginia’s GDP rose from 2006-2007 and then immediately fell from 2007-2008 due to the financial crisis. However, the economy experienced larger growth from 2009-2010, growing from roughly $4.07-$4.17 billion, a 2.3% jump.

Virginia’s economy held steady at $4.17 billion from 2010 to 2011 and then increased each year up through 2014. Then from 2014-2015, Virginia’s economy experienced another larger spike in growth from $4.24-$4.32 billion, a 2% increase.

Virginia’s economy is diverse so it’s not surprising that the robust economic growth that occurred from 2014 to 2015 was not spread evenly across the state. While the BEA is still compiling data on county GDP, we utilized their data on personal income by county to show the intra-state differences.

Personal Income is not the equivalent of county-level GDP, the typical measure of economic output, but it can serve as a proxy for the economic conditions of a county.[1] Figure 4 below shows which counties saw the largest and smallest changes in personal income from 2014 to 2015. The red counties are the 10 counties with the smallest changes while the blue counties are the 10 counties with the largest changes.

As depicted in Figure 4 above, the counties with the strongest personal income growth are concentrated in the north, the east and areas surrounding Richmond. Loudon County in the north experienced the most personal income growth at 7%. The counties surrounding Richmond experienced at least 5.5% growth. Total personal income in Albemarle County grew by 5.7% while the rest of the counties—Hanover, Charles City, Greene, Louisa, and New Kent—experienced growth between 6.2% and 6.7%.

With the exception of Northumberland, the counties in which personal income grew the least were along the western border and in the southern parts of the state. Four of these counties and an independent city were concentrated in the relatively rural Southwest corner of the state—Buchanan, Tazewell, Dickenson, Washington and the independent city of Bristol. In fact, Buchanan County’s personal income contracted by 1.14%.

Cross-county differences in personal income growth in Virginia from 2014 to 2015 are consistent with national data as shown below.

This map from the BEA shows personal income growth by county (darker colors mean more growth). Nationwide, personal income growth was lower on average in relatively rural counties. Residents of rural counties also have lower incomes and less educational attainment on average. This is not surprising given the strong positive relationship between human capital and economic growth.

And during the most recent economic recovery, new business growth was especially weak in counties with less than 100,000 people. In fact, from 2010 to 2014 these counties actually lost businesses on net.

Conclusion:

Government spending on Individual and Family Services increased during the recession and has yet to return to pre-recession levels. Meanwhile, spending on education declined while spending on transportation slightly increased. This is consistent with other research that has found that state spending on health services, e.g. Medicaid, is crowding out spending in other areas.

Economic growth in Virginia was relatively strong from 2014 to 2015 but was not evenly distributed across the state. The counties with the smallest percentage changes in personal income are relatively rural while the counties with the largest gains are more urban. This is consistent with national patterns and other economic data revealing an urban-rural economic gap in and around Virginia.

[1] Personal Income is defined by the BEA as “the income received by, or on behalf of, all persons from all sources: from participation as laborers in production, from owning a home or business, from the ownership of financial assets, and from government and business in the form of transfers. It includes income from domestic sources as well as the rest of world. It does not include realized or unrealized capital gains or losses.” For more information about personal income see https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/lapi/lapi_newsrelease.htm