Saturday, September 26, 2009

America's Ridiculously Large $14T Economy

Click to enlarge.

Which economy is larger: the NYC metro area or India? San Francisco metro area or Argentina? Detroit or Israel? St. Louis or New Zealand? Baton Rouge or Guatemala? Davenport (IA) or Bolivia? Flint (MI) or Brunei? Palm Coast (FL) or Belize?

In all cases, the economies of those American cities are approximately the same size as the economies of the entire countries listed above, both measured by GDP in 2008 (GDP
data here for U.S metro areas, GDP data here for countries). More than 100 U.S. cities are matched in the table above to countries that produced approximately the same amount of annual output in 2008.

We often lose sight of: a) how big the U.S. economy is, b) how productive American workers are, and c) how much we produce vs. other countries. After all, who can get their mind around $14 trillion, the size of the U.S. economy measured by GDP ($14,000,000,000,000)? Maybe this comparison of the GDP of U.S. metro areas to entire countries will help put the enormous size of the U.S. economy in some perspective.


12 Comments:

At 9/26/2009 11:59 AM, Anonymous Miffed said...

Danville, IL or Central African Republic.

Hmmm. Tough choice.

Nice table.

 
At 9/26/2009 2:12 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great chart. Although somewhat out of date this map showing US states renamed as nations with similar GDP's:

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/06/10/131-us-states-renamed-for-countries-with-similar-gdps/

 
At 9/26/2009 10:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I dunno about Detroit. GM is mostly dead these days, for instance.

 
At 9/26/2009 11:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

where the hell is san antonio tx?

 
At 9/27/2009 6:19 AM, Blogger KO said...

The incredible thing is the Federal government spending this year of almost $4 trillion matches Germany's entire GDP. And it get's close to China's and Japan's entire GDP.

 
At 9/27/2009 9:04 AM, Anonymous Tobias Magan said...

Another incredible thing - some of these are not even big cities. Manhattan, Kansas? Columbia, Missouri? Pocatello, Idaho? Not really big manufacturing hubs. Damn, I'm glad to be American.

 
At 9/27/2009 10:50 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have problems believing the chart. At the top it says MILLIONS. New Zealand's is only 130 MILLION. India's is only 1 billion. The US econonmy at 14 TRILLION would make our economy 1600 times as large as India's. Is that right?

 
At 9/27/2009 11:11 AM, Blogger Mark J. Perry said...

Anonymous: No, India is $1.217 TRILLION, and New Zealand is $130 BILLION. The numbers in the chart are stated in MILLIONS of dollars, so you would ADD SIX ZEROES.

 
At 9/27/2009 11:53 AM, Blogger bix1951 said...

problem is
we are geared up too high
stimulated too much
taught to always want more

we have more than enough
we are choking on it
it is hurting us

full employment should be defined as 8%
calm down
smell the roses

 
At 9/28/2009 2:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

American production is a joke

Actually that's for Capitalism, don't take it personal.

It's all about goods and services, neither have a fixed price, the market appreciate the value.

Take by instance designer's or artist's production: where's the value?

I'm sure plenty of America's output it's on services or goods with subjective values

You can't just keep giving value forever to something just because you think it's valuable, that's a bubble.

Keep pumpin' America!

 
At 10/03/2009 10:01 PM, Anonymous tyree said...

One good thing about the election of President Obama is that a large number of anti-capitalisits have been flushed out into the open where we can laugh at them with their antiquated socialist ways.

 
At 10/03/2009 11:09 PM, Anonymous Silhouette said...

We got it all by stealing it from third world countries...whose combined output isn't 1/1000th of ours...uh, uh...wait a minute, I'm sure the math works out somehow...my professor assured me we got our wealth by stealing it...

 

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