California Vs. The Rest of the US
How many of the smallest U.S. state economies together equal California’s alone?
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1. The 25 smallest U.S. state economies (not counting D.C.) add up to $2.68 trillion as of 2016 – which is just a bit larger than California’s $2.66 trillion.
2. These bottom 25 state economies (out of 50 overall) range on the small end from Vermont ($31 billion) to South Carolina ($213 billion).
3. The best-known private-sector components of California’s economy are the software and recorded entertainment sectors in places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood, respectively.
4. Together, as the “Information” industry, they account for 8% of California’s economy.
5. Manufacturing, including some of the hardware side of the tech industry and more, is 11%. Government is 12%. Real estate is 17%.
6. California’s agricultural sector also remains a vital factor in the U.S. economy, but generates only about 1% of the state’s economy today.
7. The size of the Bay Area economy, which primarily encompasses San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Silicon Valley, amounts to about $667 billion.
8. At that level, the multi-metro area economy is about as large as the GDP of Switzerland ($665 billion).
9. With Apple, Google and Facebook, the Bay area also has the headquarters of the 1st, 2nd and 8th most valuable publicly-traded companies in the world.
10. These three firms currently have a total market capitalization of $1.66 trillion.
Sources: The Globalist Research Center, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Census Bureau, World Bank
