1. Americas largest state economy is California, which produced $2.44 trillion of economic output in 2015, just slightly above the GDP of France during the same period of $2.42 trillion.
Consider this: California has a workforce of about 19 million compared to an employment level in France of slightly more than 25 million workers. Amazingly, it required 56 percent (and 9 million) more workers in France to produce the same economic output last year as California! Thats a testament to the superior, world-class productivity of the American worker.
Further, California as a separate country would have been the sixth largest economy in the world last year, ahead of France ($2.42 trillion) and India ($2.09 trillion) and not too far behind No. 5 U.K. at $2.85 trillion.
2. Americas second largest state economyTexasproduced $1.64 trillion of economic output in 2015, which would have ranked the Lone Star State as the worlds 10th largest economy last year, behind No. 9 Brazil with $1.77 trillion of economic output.
Although Brazil out-produced Texas last year by almost 8 percent, the workforce of Brazil is around 91 million employees compared to payroll employment in Texas of only about 12 million. So to produce just slightly more economic output last year, Brazils workforce is larger by almost 80 million workers compared to the U.S.!
3. Even with all of its oil wealth, Saudi Arabias GDP in 2015 at $653 billion was below the GDP of U.S. states like Pennsylvania ($680 billion) and Illinois ($768 billion).
4. Americas third largest state economyNew York with a GDP in 2015 of $1.45 trillionproduced nearly the same amount of economic output last year as Canada ($1.55 trillion) and would have ranked as the worlds 11th largest economy last year as a separate country, ahead of both South Korea ($1.38 trillion) and Russia ($1.32 trillion).
Amazingly, even though Canada produced about 7 percent more economic output last year than the state of New York, there are almost twice as many Canadian workers (about 18 million) as the number of workers employed in New York (9.2 million). Another example of the world-class productivity of the American workforce.
5. Other comparisons: Florida ($888 billion) produced about the same amount of GDP in 2015 as Indonesia ($858 billion), even though Floridas workforce of 9.3 million is about 8 percent of Indonesias workforce of 115 million employees. GDP in Illinois last year of $768 billion was just slightly higher than economic output in the Netherlands ($738 billion), even though employment in Illinois (6.2 million workers) is about 25 percent below the employment level in the Netherlands (8.34 million workers).
Overall, the U.S. produced 24.5 percent of world GDP in 2015, with only about 4.5 percent of the worlds population. Three of Americas states (California, Texas and New York)as separate countrieswould have ranked in the worlds top 11 largest economies last year.
Together, those three US states produced $5.5 trillion in economic output last year, and as a separate country would have ranked as the worlds third largest economy and ahead of No. 3 Japan ($4.1 trillion) by almost $1.5 trillion.
And one of those statesCaliforniaproduced more than $2 trillion in economic output in 2015and the other two (Texas and New York) produced more than $1.6 trillion and $1.4 trillion of GDP in 2015 respectively.
Adjusted for the size of the workforce, there might not be any country in the world that produces as much output per worker as the US, thanks to the world-class productivity of the American workforce.
The map above and the statistics summarized here help remind us of the enormity of the economic powerhouse we live and work in. So lets not lose sight of how ridiculously large and powerful the US economy is, and how much wealth, output and prosperity is being created every day in the largest economic engine ever in human history.
It's the hard hitting inestigstive journalism we've all come to know and love from their journalists.
Isn’t Socialism Grand! Oh wait......
Cheese eating surrender monkeys?
No, within a year California would be Venezuela, or Haiti.
...and it has the high taxes and hard left culture to match.
Why do they have Texas as Canada, when at the link it shows Texas similar to Brazil?
Yes, and we are in the same mess as France, maybe even worse.
Michigan = Poland?
I can live with that.
So, we’re terrified of the Russkies, whose economy doesn’t even measure up to New York State’s? How stupid!
Oh, and Russia’s economy isn’t going to grow much if Trump keeps allowing the oil and gas companies to produce like crazy...which, of course, he not only will, but he’ll loosen up the regs even more if he can to promote yet more drilling, extracting and refining. Russia’s economy is NOT going to do well...
...which puts the lie to the whole “Trump colluded with Russia” BS - WHY on Earth would the Russians have wanted Trump, who will not only indirectly trash their economy, but engage in a large military build-up which will further strain their resources?
California like France?
Over run my non-assimilating invaders? Check
Populated by a bunch of Liberal Freaks? Check
Lots of Hot Chicks? Check
Gasoline prices through the roof? Check
Electricity so expensive folks can’t afford AC? Check
Ready to give up everything for un-realizable Utopian Dreams? Check
I guess the article is correct.
Nebraska may have the same GDP as Morocco and Massachusetts may have the same GDP as Nigeria, but Morocco has about 17 times as many people as Nebraska and Nigeria has about 26 times the population of Massachusetts.
France has about 26 million more people than California, so Californians are actually richer than French people.
PS: I saw the HBO drama, Big Little Lies (set in Monterey) this weekend. The series shows what the rest of the country probably thinks of as the affluent "typical California" -- which is very different from how most people in the state actually live.