September 14, 2024
Donald Trump seems very confused about the state of California’s economic health. He gave a press conference Friday in which he implied that California’s economy was collapsing.
This is not true. California has a considerably higher per capita income than the rest of the country. It’s currently ranked 5th. Its economy is also growing considerably more rapidly than the rest of the country.
Since the first quarter of 2018, its economy grew 17.0 percent compared to 13.5 percent for the country as a whole.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
In fact, this comparison understates the gap somewhat. California accounts for more than 10 percent of the U.S. economy, which means that the U.S. economy outside of California grew by just a bit more than 13.0 percent over this period.
Of course, growth is not the only thing, but it is an important metric. And by most other measures, California is doing better than the average state in the country. It does have a serious shortage of housing due largely to zoning issues. Its Democratic governor is trying to address this problem and Vice-President Harris has as well, during her presidency. It doesn’t seem as though Donald Trump has noticed.
I guess it is unreasonable to expect a reality TV show star like Donald Trump to know about economics.
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