Even as much of the country struggles with the housing bust and a weak economy, states that produce oil, gas and other commodities are enjoying a boom and ramping up spending on things from wind farms to education.

While many other states are cutting health care and education, Alaska is spending heavily on infrastructure, including a proposed $25 million toward expanding the Port of Anchorage and $25 million toward a wind-power project near Anchorage. The state has also set aside $4 billion -- a third of its budget -- in two "rainy-day funds" for leaner times.

Around Fort Worth, Texas, drilling rigs are popping up on college campuses such as the University of Texas at Arlington, feeding royalties to landowners. Wyoming has increased its education budget 42% over the past two years.

Regions that produce energy and other commodities are enjoying higher employment and faster-rising incomes. In North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas, personal income, which includes income from wages and investments, grew between 6.4% and 7.4% in the fourth quarter of last year from the year before, before adjusting for inflation. Incomes in the country as a whole grew 5.9%.

Most states with thriving economies didn't have a sharp run-up in housing prices and so have avoided precipitous declines. Now, as high energy prices spur production from oil and natural-gas wells once too costly to be profitable in Texas and other states, there is strong demand for new workers -- and for hotels and restaurants to accommodate them. Newcomers flocking to jobs in labor-short markets help buoy housing markets.

• The News: The high price of oil is a drag on the U.S. economy as a whole, but it's good news for states with big energy industries, such as Texas and Alaska.• The Impact: Soaring oil-company profits are fattening state coffers with tax revenues, while increased drilling is helping spur job creation and propping up local housing markets.• The Caveat: There are signs that even the energy states are beginning to cool. And if oil prices fall, state economies could fall with them.

Wyoming gained 6,700 residents from other states last year, compared with an average increase of 1,300 a year over the previous five years. Montana gained 6,500 residents from migration. Relatively few people have relocated to states where house prices are falling, adding to the inventory of unsold houses and further depressing prices. Last year about 35,000 people moved to Florida from another part of the U.S., compared with 170,000 the year before.

Energy-producing states still face challenges. Their residents face increasingly costly food and gasoline and must crimp spending on other things. Alaska is one of two states where the average price of a gallon of gasoline exceeds $4 statewide, according to AAA, the automobile group. Slower growth overseas could pull down commodity prices and let the air out of the energy boom.

And there are scattered signs that the economies of energy states, though still growing, are starting to cool as the national economy slows. In the fourth quarter of last year, many energy states saw personal-income growth slow to close to the national average after several months of growing several percentage points faster. "We cannot be buffered indefinitely by higher energy prices," says Mark Snead, director of the Center for Applied Economic Research at Oklahoma State University.

But government coffers in energy-producing states are swelling as their economies grow. In the first quarter, Wyoming's sales-tax revenue was 4.5% above the year-earlier period. Such revenue increased 6.7% in Texas and 2.6% in North Dakota. Most other states with sales taxes have seen revenues decline as the weak economy and soaring gas and food prices have forced consumers to cut back on discretionary spending.

Wyoming, which doesn't have an income tax, is reaping royalties, lease revenues and other income from oil and mineral companies and is spending heavily on education and infrastructure. In 2004, the state created the Business Ready Community Grant and Loan Program, which gives small communities money to develop new roads, sewers, buildings and other infrastructure. The program has spent about $107 million, including $4.5 million in grants to Big Horn County to expand its airport and build a new hangar for a local employer.

Groups in many of these states, wary of past energy busts, already are preparing for the next downturn. In Texas, Opportunity Houston, an alliance of business and community leaders, has raised more than $30 million to recruit businesses to diversify the region's economy. "It's really counterintuitive and against human nature to go and put this money up and plan for the future," says Jeff Moseley, chief executive of the Greater Houston Partnership.

The state is taking a similar approach, cutting business taxes and using its better-than-average economy as a recruiting point. The University of Texas at Arlington recently signed a lease to allow drilling on its campus, situated between Dallas and Fort Worth. James Spaniolo, the university president, says the money will be put in a fund and used for long-term projects.

"What we're going to try to resist is just putting the money into the general fund to meet immediate needs," he says. "I really view it as an opportunity to invest in the university."

In some areas, red-hot economies are leading to labor shortages, which could slow growth and tax revenues in the near future. Unemployment in Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota is near 3%.

Write to Conor Dougherty at conor.dougherty@wsj.com and Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com

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