Gov. Kristi Noem presents her fiscal year 2025 budget address to the South Dakota Legislature on Dec. 5, 2023, at the Capitol in Pierre. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
Gov. Kristi Noem celebrated South Dakota’s nation-leading growth in a category of household income, but she didn’t mention a reason why the state was well positioned to improve: It ranked last during the prior year.
Noem’s office issued a news release Tuesday saying South Dakota “once again led the nation in income growth in 2023.”
“South Dakotans are thriving because we defend Freedom and advance their opportunities to pursue their dreams,” said a statement from the Republican governor, which continued her two-year-old practice of using a capital “F” when writing the word “freedom.”
The release cited newly published data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The numbers show South Dakota’s real median household income grew by 17% percent in 2023, which was the best growth rate in the nation.
But a little digging into the same dataset reveals South Dakota’s real median household income fell by 16% in 2022, which was the nation’s worst decline that year.