Haines has low wages, according to an Alaska Economic Trends report from March. In it, Haines has the fourth lowest average annual wages in the state. But a lesser-paid seasonal workforce makes annual wages appear lower than they are.

Haines ranks 26 out of 29 among Alaskan communities in average annual wages at $37,152 in 2017, according to the report. In January through March of 2018, however, annual wages were $57,823, based on Alaska Department of Labor statistics.

While the annual wages are skewed lower due to factors like seasonal jobs, the first quarter wage average of $57,823 is skewed higher because of jobs in healthcare, the school district and in state and local government.

“The employment and therefore payroll is more seasonal than I expected in Haines,” said Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development economist Neal Fried after looking at the quarterly payroll for total employment. In July, August and September of 2018, the payroll for total employment in Haines was $13,251,825, a figure almost double of what employees made in January, February and March.

The overall economy gets a boost in the summer because of jobs in tourism and construction. But because there are so many more people working, the statistic, which simply divides the total payroll by the number of jobs, pushes the average wages down.

“Averages are dangerous,” Fried said, calling the wage statistic simplistic: “It’s just taking the total payroll of an area and dividing it by the number of jobs. It’s very simplistic, so it has potential problems, because it could be affected by different factors,” he said.

Although those tourism and construction jobs boost the Haines economy, they also play a role in depressing the average annual wage overall, Fried said. “Not only are the average (seasonal) wages really low, you’re working less time, so a person is earning less payroll,” said Fried. “A disproportionate number of seasonal workers tend to be non-residents, and the average wages for non-residents tend to be lower than residents,” he said.

Comparing Haines per capita income to its average annual wages is a false comparison, Fried said. “Even if you just looked at the wages there could be a disparity, because income is everyone’s income in a household, but wages are just a piece of income,” he said.

The annual wage number in the Economic Trends report also does not reflect people who are self-employed, including commercial fishermen and business owners who are not on their own payrolls. According to IRS documents from 2015 cited in the McDowell economic baseline report, the income from those endeavors accounted for $3.6 million, and 31 percent of Haines income tax filers reported income from small business enterprises.

Communities receiving the highest annual wages include the North Slope Borough, Northwest Arctic Borough and Southeast Fairbanks Census Area—all regions where mining, oil and gas, and government jobs are prevalent.

“We just don’t have those kinds of jobs in Haines,” Haines Economic Development Director Margaret Friedenauer said. “But what we do have is a lot of people in Haines who are entrepreneurs, small-business owners and retirees; all folks with income that isn’t reflected in this table.”

Per capita income in Haines is $59,951, which ranks 11 out of 29. Per capita income is higher than the state average in part because of non-earnings income from retirees.

“We have the oldest median age in the state,” Friedenauer said. The median age in Haines in 2017 was 49.3 years old, and 32 percent of residents are 60 or above. HEDC’s economic baseline report called Haines “unique” in this respect. Forty-nine percent of personal income is derived from wages, compared to 66 percent statewide. That means a greater portion of the borough depends on non-earnings income and are not reflected in annual wage statistics, than the portion of residents whose earnings are included in the data.

“Maybe the overall income picture is actually better. It does mean that Haines residents are less dependent on earnings than the rest of the state,” Fried said, because a larger percentage of the population is retired and ‘receiving’ money, either in the form of personal interest through retirement packages, or people who are independently wealthy.

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