The primary metric used is “Real GDP.” Real GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure of GDP– in this case chained to 2017 USD. In other words, all dollar amounts in this article are portrayed in their 2017 equivalents to allow for a more direct comparison of the values.
County private industry GDPs across the nationIn 2022, the total real GDP of all private industries across all U.S. counties was $19.3 trillion—an increase of 2% over the year prior and 9% over the past five years.
Santa Clara County increased the most of any county from 2018-2022, jumping $80 billion, or by 28%. The next largest increase occurred in King County, Washington, with a $65 billion, or 23%, increase.
See Figure 1 below for more detail on private industry GDPs for each U.S. county from 2017-2022 and Figure 2 for the 5-year percentage change in GDP values from 2018-2022. Fourteen broad industries and the private industry total can be found in both visuals.
Sixty-three percent of all counties grew their real GDPs across all industries, with the average overall percent change at 4%, from 2018 through 2022.
However, many of the counties with both the largest and smallest percentage changes are located in more rural areas, where populations are low, and GDPs are more susceptible to swings.
For example, the counties with the largest jumps are Foard, Texas (+160% or $55 million), Concho, Texas (+157% or $102 million), Lincoln, South Dakota (+129% or $3.4 billion), Coke, Texas (+126% or $99 million), and the Emporia-Greensville Commonwealth, Virginia (+103% or $738 million).
Conversely, those with the largest decreases are Morrill, Nebraska (-58% or $331 million), Treasure, Montana (-54% or $54 million), Slope, North Dakota (-52% or $16 million), Cameron, Louisiana (-52% or $810 million), and Jackson, West Virginia (-51% or $726 million).
While these changes in real GDP may still seem large, bear in mind the average real GDP of a U.S. county was $6.2 billion, while the median was $863 million (range of $8.4 million to $751 billion) in 2022.
In contrast, looking instead across the 500 counties with the largest real GDPs in 2022, 82% grew their private industry real GDPs while the average percentage change in real GDP from 2018-2022 was an increase of 9%.
The largest relative increases within this subset of counties were in Lincoln, South Dakota (+129% or $3.4 billion), Martin, Texas (+62% or $2.5 billion), and Guadalupe, Texas (+61% or $3.4 billion). On the other hand, the largest relative decreases were in Jefferson, Texas (-20% or $3.8 billion), Calcasieu, Louisiana (-16% or $2.2 billion), and Minnehaha, South Dakota (-16% or $2.8 billion).
While looking at overall GDP changes can tell us something about the health of a county’s economic ecosystem, further breakdown by industry can reveal the driving forces in much greater detail.