Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Roca Honda Mine

Earnings
Chapter 3. Affected Environment and Environmental Consequences
Several measures are used to discuss earnings, including per capita personal income, total
industry income, and compensation by industry. Personal income data are measured and reported
for the county of the place of residence. Per capita personal income, then, is the total personal
income for the county divided by population in the county. Compensation data, however, are
measured and reported for the county of work location, and are typically reported on a per job
basis. Total compensation includes wages and salaries, as well as employer contribution for
employee retirement funds, social security, health insurance, and life insurance.
Per Capita Personal Income
Personal income is the income received by all persons from all sources, or the sum of net earnings
by a place of residence, property income, and personal current transfer receipts (USDOC, 2011).
This includes earnings from work received during the period. It also includes interest and
dividends received, as well as government transfer payments, such social security checks. It is
measured before the deduction of personal income taxes and other personal taxes and is reported
in current dollars.
Table 49 contains 2000, 2005, and 2010 annual per capita personal income for Cibola and
McKinley Counties, as well as the State of New Mexico. All dollar estimates are in current
dollars (not adjusted for inflation). Cibola County had the higher per capita personal income at
$25,373, though McKinley County’s per capita personal income was only $1,409 less. Both
counties have consistently had per capita personal incomes less than the State average during this
10-year interval.
McKinley County experienced the largest percentage change in per capita income from 2000 to
2010 with an increase of 72.9 percent. However, Cibola County’s annual per capita income has
consistently been higher than McKinley’s over this 10-year interval. The annual per capita
personal income for both Cibola and McKinley Counties grew at rates faster than the State
overall.
Households
Table 49. Annual per capita personal income (in $1,000s)
County
Income
2000 2005 2010
Percent Change
2000-2010
Cibola 15,256 20,747 25,373 66.3
McKinley 13,858 19,335 23,964 72.9
New Mexico 22,746 28,641 32,940 44.8
Source: USDOC, 2012
A housing unit indicates a house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, a group of rooms, or a
single room occupied as separate living quarters or, if vacant, intended for occupancy as separate
living quarters. McKinley County has more housing units, occupied housing units, and owner
occupied housing units, but Cibola County has a higher median value of housing units and
median household income (table 50). An owner occupied housing unit indicates that the owner or
DEIS for Roca Honda Mine, Cibola National Forest 283