“A major goal of the Alliance since its formation was to bring the county’s per capita income up to the state average,” said Leslie Henderson, President/CEO, The Roane Alliance. “I feel very gratified that we have logged some of the top percentages increases in the state consistently over the past few years and that we are now at 90% of the state average."

That is from the press release printed in the Roane County News today. I wonder if they are calculated by the same genius who reported that unemployment went down in the US even as the population grew, and we lost 60,000 jobs last month?

Mathematically improbable, at best.

A recent BEA report disclosed that in 1996, the per capita personal income for Roane was $18,795, resulting in a placement of 34th amongst other Tennessee counties. In 2006, Roane had a per capita personal income of $29,074 and climbed in ranking to 20th in the state.

I'm having to scratch my head on that one. We've lost several manufacturers and the big recruit in the new Industrial park has hundreds of jobs but last I heard only 12 of them were filled by Roane Countians.

Wouldn't it make more sense to credit the high dollar lake homes with bringing in rich retired people who have high incomes, or people moving out to Roane County while working in other counties, rather than any high paying jobs the Alliance has created?

I would love to see Leslie's numbers. I hope she's right and I'm wrong.