Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is often talked about in the context of the United States, but the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) allows us to follow this indicator on a local level. In this edition of Data Points, learn a bit about this valuable data set (which can be found here) and how Michigan stacks up against other states.
What is GDP?
Gross Domestic Product, usually called GDP, is the sum of final goods and services provided in an area. When measuring by state, however, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis defines it as “the market value of goods and services produced by the labor and property located in a state.” More detail on how GDP by State differs from national or international measures can be found here.
What’s happening locally
Michigan has seen Real GDP increase by 2.3 percent over the year from 2016 to 2017. For this time period, Michigan ranked 15th of the 50 states for percent change. However, of the five Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as designated by the BEA), this 2.3 percent ranks 1s.
This 2.3 percent growth in 2017 is the highest in two years, when Real GDP grew by 2.6 percent from 2014 to 2015. Michigan’s Real GDP growth has now bested the U.S. growth for the last two years, and the Great Lakes states for the last three.
Much of this Real GDP growth can be attributed to several industries: Durable-goods Manufacturing (which contributed 0.73 percentage points of Real GDP growth), Real estate and rental and leasing (0.27), Management of companies and enterprises (0.25), and Retail trade (0.21).
More about the data
GDP by State is a useful statistic to those looking at the overall health of state economies. The BEA releases quarterly and annual data on GDP by State, with about a five-month delay from the end of the previous quarter.
Data currently available is updated to the 4th quarter of 2017, along with 2017 annual estimates (used above). The next release will be on July 24th, and will include estimates for GDP by State for the 1st quarter of 2018.
Future Data Topics
Have you been enjoying these “Data Points” blogs? Are you interested in other data? Let us know what topics you’d like to know more about on our Twitter @WMTalent2025! We’d like to crunch some numbers that you’re interested in.
