Blog Post

AEIdeas

Following the BEA release today of US state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for 2014, I was able to update the map above (and make it color this year), which appeared on CD a year ago using 2013 data.

The map above was created by matching economic output in US states in 2014 to foreign countries with comparable nominal GDPs, using BEA data for GDP by US state and GDP by country from the International Monetary Fund, via Wikipedia here. For each US state (and the District of Columbia), I tried to find the country closest in economic size in 2014 (measured by nominal GDP), and for each state there was a country with a pretty close match – those countries are displayed in the map above and in the table below. Obviously, in some cases the closest match was a country that produced slightly more, or slightly less, economic output in 2014 than a given US state.

It’s pretty amazing how ridiculously large the US economy is, and the map above helps put America’s GDP of nearly $18 trillion in 2014 into perspective by comparing the GDP of US states to other country’s entire national GDP. For example:

1. America’s largest state economy is California, which produced $2.31 trillion of economic output in 2014, just slightly below Brazil’s GDP in the same year of $2.35 trillion. In 2014, California as a separate country would have been the 8th largest economy in the world, ahead of Italy ($2.1 trillion) and India ($2.04 trillion) and Russia ($1.86 trillion). And California’s population is only 38.8 million compared to Brazil’s population of 200.4 million, which means California produces the same economic output as Brazil with 81% fewer people. That’s a testament to the superior, world-class productivity of the American worker.

2. America’s second largest state economy – Texas – produced $1.65 trillion of economic output in 2014, placing it just slightly behind the world’s 11th largest country by GDP – Canada – with $1.78 trillion of economic output.

3. Even with all of its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia’s GDP in 2014 at $752 billion was just slightly more than the state GDP of Illinois ($746 billion).

4. America’s third largest state – New York with a GDP in 2014 of $1.4 trillion – produced the same amount of economic output last year as Spain ($1.4 trillion), even though Spain’s population of 47.3 million people is more than twice the number of people living in New York (19.75 million). Another example of the world-class productivity of the American workforce.

5. Other comparisons: Florida ($840 billion) produced about the same GDP in 2014 as the Netherlands ($866 billion), Pennsylvania ($663 billion) produces almost as much as the entire country of Switzerland ($712 billion) and Ohio ($583 billion) produces more than the entire country of Nigeria ($573 billion).

MP: Overall, the US produced 22.5% of world GDP in 2014, with only about 4.6% of the world’s population. Three of America’s states (California, Texas and New York) – as separate countries – would rank in the world’s top 14 largest economies. And one of those states – California – produced more than $2 trillion in economic output in 2014 – and the other two (Texas and New York) produced more than $1.6 trillion and $1.4 trillion of GDP in 2014 respectively. The map and these statistics help remind us of the enormity of the economic powerhouse we live in. So let’s not lose sight of how ridiculously large and powerful the US economy is, and how much wealth and prosperity is being created all the time in the world’s largest economic engine.

State 2014 GDP (millions) Country 2014 GDP (Millions) California $2,311,616 Brazil $2,353,025 Texas $1,648,036 Canada $1,788,717 New York $1,404,518 Spain $1,406,855 Florida $839,944 Netherlands $866,354 Illinois $745,875 Saudi Arabia $752,459 Pennsylvania $662,890 Switzerland $712,050 Ohio $583,261 Nigeria $573,652 New Jersey $549,099 Poland $546,644 North Carolina $483,126 Taiwan $529,550 Georgia $476,483 Norway $500,244 Virginia $463,613 Austria $437,123 Massachusetts $459,937 Iran $404,132 Michigan $451,516 UAE $401,647 Washington $427,052 Colombia $384,901 Maryland $348,631 South Africa $350,082 Indiana $317,840 Malaysia $326,933 Minnesota $316,204 Singapore $308,051 Colorado $306,663 Israel $303,771 Tennessee $300,604 Egypt $286,435 Wisconsin $292,891 Philippines $284,927 Missouri $284,462 Finland $271,165 Arizona $284,156 Chile $257,968 Connecticut $253,036 Pakistan $250,136 Louisiana $251,397 Ireland $246,438 Oregon $215,677 Portugal $230,012 Alabama $199,440 Peru $202,948 South Carolina $190,304 Romania $199,950 Kentucky $188,602 New Zealand $198,118 Oklahoma $183,501 Vietnam $186,049 Iowa $170,613 Bangladesh $185,415 Kansas $147,075 Kuwait $172,350 Utah $141,410 Hungary $137,104 Nevada $132,064 Ukraine $130,660 Arkansas $121,395 Angola $128,564 District of Columbia $115,473 Morocco $109,201 Nebraska $112,159 Ecuador $100,755 Mississippi $104,851 Slovakia $99,971 New Mexico $92,959 Oman $77,755 Hawaii $77,389 Belarus $76,139 West Virginia $75,337 Sri Lanka $74,588 New Hampshire $71,552 Syria $71,998 Idaho $63,952 Uzbekistan $62,619 Delaware $62,756 Kenya $60,770 Alaska $57,080 Croatia $57,159 Maine $55,838 Bulgaria $55,837 North Dakota $55,136 Uruguay $55,143 Rhode Island $54,960 Ethiopia $52,335 South Dakota $45,867 Tanzania $47,932 Montana $44,269 Panama $43,784 Wyoming $44,190 Yemen $43,229 Vermont $29,613 Paraguay $29,704

Note: Earl Fry, Professor of Political Science at Brigham Young University, gets credit as the original creator of US maps with states renamed for countries with similar GDPs (international doppelgangers of US states). He has produced these maps on a regular basis since 2003.