Level playing field in Alaska: State has least gap between rich, poor
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- With its sheer size, its brutal cold and its long winter nights, Alaska is a land of extremes. But when it comes to wealth, it has the smallest gap between rich and poor of any state.
The findings are based on household income data from the 2000 Census. And a look around Alaska, the biggest state in area, seems to confirm it.
Someone walking through the best neighborhoods in Anchorage would find only a few million-dollar homes. In the city's lower-income neighborhoods there are few if any of the boarded-up homes found in other states. In Alaska's harbors, commercial fishing boats greatly outnumber yachts and other pleasure boats.
While the gap between rich and poor grew by about 3.1 percent nationally during the 1990s, it barely budged in Alaska. The Census Bureau measured the gap with a mathematical tool known as the Gini coefficient.
A population with income distributed evenly would have a Gini coefficient of 0; one with the widest income disparity would have a Gini of 100. Nationwide, the gap between rich and poor during the 1990s went from 43.3 to 44.6.
The state with the largest gap was New York, at 49.4. The state with the smallest was Alaska, at 40.0. The median household income for Alaska in 1999 was $51,571, compared with $43,393 in New York.
Economists say there are several factors that level the playing field in Alaska. Among them: the oil dividend check mailed out annually to practically every man, woman and child in the state. This month, more than 591,500 Alaskans will get $1,540.76 each from an account that receives royalties from the North Slope oil that is pumped via the Alaska pipeline.
Also contributing to the narrow gap between rich and poor: Alaska has fewer low-paying jobs.
"We don't have a lot of migrant farm workers or a huge retail industry or service industry. Yes, we have McDonald's and Wal-Mart, but not as many as in other places," said Gunnar Knapp, an economics professor at the University of Alaska. "A very significant part of our employment is in government, and those are reasonably well-paying jobs."
Another explanation offered: Alaska is a relatively young state.
"We don't have old money," said Clair Ramsey, a real estate agent who sells higher-end homes. "It usually takes more than a generation to make real money, unless you're a Bill Gates or a Michael Jordan or a Julia Roberts. We don't have movie stars here."
That's nice, but I'm still not moving to anyplace where you have to leave your automobile engines running overnight to keep the antifreeze from freezing....
