Several other indications of an improving economy are higher revenues flowing into state government's treasury from sales tax and insurance tax collections.
Sales tax revenue is up 5.33 percent for the first three months of the current state budget year, which began July 1 and runs through June 30, 2004.
That is a big turnaround. Last fall and winter, sales tax collections showed little growth. They actually shrunk in December 2002 from December 2001, falling about one-half of 1 percent, and grew less than 1 percent in February 2002.
Since then, sales tax growth has shown a significant recovery. The rate has exceeded 4.5 percent for five of the past seven months and never fell below 2 percent.
However, those numbers also suggest that South Dakota's economy hasn't returned to full strength yet. The historical average for sales tax growth is 5.99 percent.
Revenues from state taxes on insurance premiums have increased much faster than the historical average for the past three quarters.
The reasons are many but they generally fit under the same umbrella. Because interest rates are low, people have continued to buy new vehicles and invest in new houses and new construction. All of those need insurance.
Insurance tax revenue was up 9.21 percent for the first quarter of the current budget year. That came on the heels of 13 percent growth in each of the two previous quarters, all well above the historical average of 6.51 percent.
Dilges said South Dakota this time seemed to head into the slowdown sooner than the nation and started to come out of it earlier too. That would mark a switch from the traditional pattern of South Dakota lagging the national economic trends.
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