As I’ve noted before, the progressives have latched on the fact that California is the 7th (or 8th) largest economy in the world. It’s a “so there” rebuttal, intended to prove that all the bad economic policies in our Golden State have had little or no negative effect. But of course, this grand assertion is accompanied by zero analysis.
I’ve ripped this this misleading fact apart before — adjusting our state’s GDP for population and COL in other states. But now we have new, updated GDP state figures (mid-2014) to consider:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP
Let’s just look at California vs. Texas for now:
Latest GDP: California — $2,287 trillion
Texas — $1.503 trillion.
But, of course, this ignores the difference in population. California has about 44% more people than Texas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
So — adjusting for that factor, the PER CAPITA GDP is roughly equal. Okay, okay, I’m “rounding” off — not fair. The actual per capita GDP:
- California $58,939 per capita GDP
- Texas $59,465!
But wait, there’s more! Consider the COL by state. If you factor that in, California’s per capita GDP, adjusting for COL, is worse than all but 13 states — based on a previous analysis I did.
http://riderrants.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-true-ranking-of-californias-gdp-vs.html
BTW, that COL factor is why the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now ranks California as the worst poverty state in the nation:
California’s real poverty rate (the new census bureau standard adjusted for COL) is easily the worst in the nation at 23.4%. We are 57.3% higher than the average for the other 49 states (up from 48.8% higher last year). Indeed, the CA poverty rate is 17.0% higher than 2nd place Nevada.
http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p60-251.pdf page 9