Economy
Related: About this forumA Third of America's Economy Is Concentrated in Just 31 Counties
Bloomberg
By Andre Tartar and Reade Pickert
December 16, 2019, 5:00 AM
While Americas economy has grown for over a decade, that growth is increasingly concentrated in 1% of the nations counties.
Just 31 counties, or the top 1% by share, made up 32.3% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2018, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that included nearly 20 years of county-level GDP data. That's despite these counties only having 26.1% of employed Americans and 21.9% of the population last year. Their combined GDP share is also up from a recession low of 30.1% in 2009.
The nations economy is becoming increasingly concentrated in large cities and by the coastsand less so in rural countiesspurring the question of whether rural areas will be increasingly left behind. The growing concentration of the countrys economic activity could impact a variety of things from infrastructure spending to labor mobility, but its unclear how rural areas will fare as their share of economic output continues to dwindle.
Looking at the largest counties by output, Los Angeles County, which has a GDP equivalent to Saudi Arabia, added $395.2 billion to total U.S. GDP from 2001 to 2018. New York County, home to Manhattan, added $340 billion...all 31 counties either included or were near major U.S. cities.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-us-gdp-concentration-counties/
Xipe Totec
(43,892 posts)With emphasis on Gross.
Farmer-Rick
(10,235 posts)It's capitalism's feature to concentrate wealth in a handful of people, along with encouraging monopolies, crime, corruption and periodic economic crashes.
sandensea
(21,713 posts)It's common in many countries to have something like 30% of their population - and 40% of their economy - in just one metro area (typically around the capital).
Still, it's not what this country was supposed to look like.
Manhattan, on one hand:
The Texas Panhandle on the other:
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,727 posts)Link to the data:
https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product