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PHOENIX — Personal income in Arizona rose at a slower rate from 2006 to 2007 than in any other state.

New figures Wednesday from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Estimates put per capita income last year — total income divided by population — at $33,029. That is up just 3.4 percent from the prior year, compared with a 5.2 percent increase nationwide.

The result is that Arizona has slipped one notch, to 40th in the nation, in personal income. In 2000 the state was ranked 37th.

Figures for individual communities will be available later this year.

Economists said some of the slide is attributable to the fact that much of Arizona's population growth includes children and teens who are not in the work force. They don't bring in any money but are part of the computation of per capita income.

And Pati Urias, spokeswoman for the state Department of Commerce, said Arizona also has a fair share of retirees who are not working.

But that doesn't explain all of it. Some of the relatively slow growth likely can be attributed to the fact that job growth in Arizona has been in positions that pay below the national average.

That is backed up by the state's own statistics of what jobs pay, a figure that takes into account only those people who actually are working:

From 2005 to 2006 — more recent figures are not yet available — the average wage of hourly workers went up just 3.6 percent. And the increase for salaried workers posted a 3.7 percent gain.

And some of it simply comes down to Arizonans' willingness to work for less.

Part of that, according to economist Tracy Clark, is the "sunshine factor." People move to Arizona because they like the environment.

Clark, associate director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, said that, in turn, leads to the second half of the problem.

"Anytime you have a large labor pool that keeps getting more people in it, it's just a supply issue," he said. "So you don't have to pay quite as much to attract the people."

Economist Dan Anderson, who works for the Arizona Board of Regents, said population growth does figure into the slide.

He said people coming to Arizona are hired at the bottom of the pay scale.

But Anderson said the state's personal income was at least 90 percent of the national figure in the 1970s through at least the mid-1980s.

What happened since then, he said, can be partly attributed to a conscious decision by state and economic development leaders on how to market the state.

"There was interest in making Arizona the low-cost producer," he said. "We would attract people because it would be less expensive to do business here."

Anderson said that might have been OK when Arizona was competing only against other states. But he said it makes no sense in a global economy.

"You sure don't want to compete with many other countries on salary or costs," Anderson said. "They will beat us every time, forever."