Per Capita Transfer Payments
Description:
Transfer payments (now referred to as “personal current transfer receipts”) is one of three primary categories of personal income. The category consists of payments to individuals and to nonprofit institutions by federal, state, and local governments and by businesses for which no current services are performed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Government payments to individuals includes retirement and disability insurance benefits, medical payments (mainly Medicare and Medicaid), income maintenance benefits, unemployment insurance benefits, veterans benefits, and federal grants and loans to students. Government payments to nonprofit institutions excludes payments by the federal government for work under research and development contracts. Business payments to persons consists primarily of liability payments for personal injury and of corporate gifts to nonprofit institutions.”
Per capita transfer payments is calculated from transfer payments and population. It is a component of individual economic well-being that is of particular importance to retirees and to certain other individuals.
The latest current dollar per capita transfer payments figure by county is presented on Arizona Indicators, along with data for the same year for the United States, the U.S. metro average, the U.S. nonmetro average, and Arizona. The figure for Arizona also is expressed as a percentage of the national average. Counties within a metropolitan area are presented as a percentage of the U.S. metro average; the remaining counties are compared to the national nonmetro average. A history of Arizona’s current dollar figure as a percentage of the national average is presented back to 1969. In addition, the inflation-adjusted percent change in per capita transfer payments is displayed for each area, beginning with 1970. The data are inflation adjusted using the gross domestic product implicit price deflator (GDP deflator).
Data Source:
Annual data are from the U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. State and national data are reported nine months after the end of a year. The data can be accessed from http://www.bea.gov/regional/spi/; transfer payments and population are included in table SA04. County data are released 16 months after the end of a year, accessible at http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/; transfer payments and population are included in table CA04.
The GDP deflator is available from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=Y (Table 1.1.9).
Data Quality Comments:
Some of the inputs to the calculation of transfer payments by state and county are estimated. Population estimates for 2000 through 2010 have been revised for the nation and Arizona based on the 2010 census count, but the revisions for the counties have not yet been released.
Per Capita Transfer Payments, 2009
Visualization Notes:
Transfer payments can be divided into two categories. Retirement and disability benefits and Medicare account for most of the first category; these payments tend to be steady from year to year. In contrast, income maintenance, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits are highly countercyclical, rising during recessions and falling during economic expansions. Even in 2009, with the weakest economy since the Great Depression, barely more than one-third of total transfer payments in Arizona and the United States were of the countercyclical type.
The most recent data for per capita transfer payments by county are for 2009, a recessionary year. The preliminary data indicate that per capita transfer payments in 2009 were greater than the U.S. metro average in four of the state’s seven metropolitan counties. In seven of the eight nonmetro counties, the figure exceeded the U.S. nonmetro average. Most of the counties with the highest figures have a large percentage of retirees.
Per Capita Transfer Payments as Percentages of the National Averages, 2009
Visualization Notes:
Per capita transfer payments in 2009 ranged from 8 percent below the U.S. metro average in Maricopa County to 21 percent above average in Mohave County. Among the eight nonmetro counties, only Santa Cruz County had a figure below the U.S. nonmetro average; the figure ranged from 12 percent to 51 percent higher than average in the other counties.
Per Capita Transfer Payments in Arizona as a Percentage of the National Average
Visualization Notes:
Since Arizona’s economy is more cyclical than the national average, per capita transfer payments as a percentage of the national average are highest during economic recessions. From 2009 through 2011, Arizona’s figure was within 1 percent of the U.S. average, the highest on record. During economic expansions, per capita transfer payments in Arizona can be more than 10 percent below the national average.
Per Capita Transfer Payments, Inflation-Adjusted Percent Change
Visualization Notes:
The inflation-adjusted percent change in per capita transfer payments is highly countercyclical nationally and in Arizona, with large increases common during recessions and small increases or decreases usually occurring during expansions. Typically, Arizona experiences larger increases during recessions and larger decreases during expansions than the national average, but the increases in Arizona have been equal to or larger than the U.S. average in each year since 2001. Following large increases from 2008 through 2010, the real change in per capita transfer payments was slightly negative in 2011.
Data Source
Annual data are from the U. S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis. State and national data are reported nine months after the end of a year. The data can be accessed from http://www.bea.gov/regional/spi/; transfer payments and population are included in table SA04. County data are released 16 months after the end of a year, accessible at http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/; transfer payments and population are included in table CA04.
The GDP deflator is available from the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/SelectTable.asp?Selected=Y (Table 1.1.9).
Explore 
Download 
Download 
