It has just surpassed Japan.
California’s economy has surpassed Japan’s, making the Golden state the fourth largest economy in the world, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday.
The state’s nominal GDP reached $4.1tn, according to data from the International Monetary Fund and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn nominal GDP. California now ranks behind the US at $29.18tn, China at $18.74tn and Germany at $4.65tn.
This took me by surprise. I knew that California had a large economy but did not realize that it was this large, and because of its high growth rate, maybe on track to become even larger than Germany and be third.
The state has outperformed the world’s top economies with a growth rate in 2024 of 6% compared with the US’s 5.3%, China’s 2.6% and Germany’s 2.9%. This week’s new rankings come six years after California surpassed the United Kingdom and became the world’s fifth largest economy.
The state’s population is just under 40 million, which places it at #39 in rankings of population by country, just below Canada. The per capita GDP of California is $102,500 while that of the rest of the US is $73,529.
Like many other Democratic states, it sends more to the federal government than it receives from them, whereas most Republican states receive more than they send. So Republicans, who love to whine about how ‘their’ money goes to the undeserving, are in reality the ones who are living off the wealth of others.
California is a major contributor to economic growth nationally, with the money it sends to the federal government outpacing what it receives in federal funding by $83bn, according to a statement from Newsom’s office.
Despite an enormous shortage of affordable housing that has fueled a homelessness crisis in the state, the population has grown in recent years. Meanwhile, last year the state reported its tourism spending had hit an all-time high – though California has seen a drop in some areas.
Canadian tourism in California was down 12% in February compared with the same month last year amid Trump’s tariff war. In response, the state has announced a new campaign to draw Canadians back, while one city has put up pro-Canada signs across its downtown.
But the governor Gavin Newsom warns that California’s economy could be hurt by Trump’s actions.
Sudan became two countries. Yugoslavia became five. The USSR became 15.
That’s just since the 80s.
I’ve often wondered why the “United” states don’t split into 5:
-- Alaska
-- Hawaii
-- East coast
-- West Coast
-- and between the latter two, Dumbfuckistan.
In many ways it already is, it just needs a charismatic leader to point out what a drag the central states are and how much better off the coasts would both be without them, now they don’t need anywhere to test their nuclear weapons any more.
I’ve seen a lot of suggestions that California should secede, but they never seemed realistic… Until the last three months
The sane states should join Greater Canada. Arizona might join Mexico.
Trumistan in between, as a bantustan providing cheap, unskilled labor.
Bringing those states back in the union would break the economy, like bringing the East back to the German Federal Republic broke the German economy.
I am probably in the minority, but I think California is nicer than Japan as it lacks the very authoritarian luggage of Japan, with accused people being regarded as guilty by suspicion.
And don’t get me started on the corruption of the ruling party (yes, I know GOP has gone bad, but the ruling japanese party has been bad since the beginning).
The jingoism if Japan is also several orders of magnitude worse. They even have a caste of “untouchables”, ethnic Japanese getting the worst jobs.
Yes, Japan has low crimes and is clean, but some things are unnegotiable… Just read “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin.
Please, please stop with this “red states go here and blue states go there” BS. So-called red states and blue states don’t exist. This idea was an invention of the media a few decades ago to simplify tracking electoral college votes in presidential elections for their TV audience. That’s really the only place it is of much use. If you drill down into voting patterns by county, what you find is that red and blue line up with rural/urban much more cleanly. For example, I live in New York state which is considered one of the most blue states. But I live in northern NY, near the six million acre Adirondack Park and 250 miles from NYC, and my county went for tRump 2:1. Even within my county, you can look at the largest city and see that it tends blue while the surrounding towns get more red as you move away. Do you know who represents my district in the US House? It’s Elise Stefanik, one of the most powerful people in the GOP today. Go to any state, red or blue, and you will see the same pattern (e.g., “blue” cities within “red” states).
So the idea that we could somehow split the country apart and have a blue “Northeast” and “West coast” along with a red “Midlands and South” is preposterous. You might as well try to divide the country up into places where tall people live versus places where short people live. That bird is bereft of life, it has shuffled off its mortal coil and joined the choir invisible. It’s an ex-parrot. Stop trying to nail it to its perch.
I am playing along with the Republican trope of “true” Americans living in the “heartland” while The Others live in the librul states (I suppose we should call them “the traitor states”).
When Jon Stewart was still on TV instead of Colbert he had a lot fun with this notion.
@jimf:
i agree.
and kudos for your use of the parrot sketch, but i’m afraid that parrots not dead yet.
What proportion of the Californian CDG is based on the AI sector? As far as I know none of them are in profit, but I don’t know how investment in industry is counted with regard to GDP, but there has been, and still is a huge amount of money coming into just that sector. Again I don’t know, but to an knowledgeable observer the larege parts of the AI sector look like another bubble and, given the huge sums involved, when it bursts will there be a proportionally huge downturn?
jimf @#4,
I understand the point you are trying to make and no one would argue with you that each state is not homogeneous and contains pockets of different kinds of voters in different local areas. But how far do you want to drill down? You have mentioned county level and then the urban/rural divide but one could go further by zip codes, neighborhoods, and even streets.
I think the red/blue divide has validity in that it provides a convenient shorthand for the kinds of policies that exist in states. It is at the state level that many policies are set. ‘Blue’ states are those that consistently elect Democratic leadership and hence enact policies that are favored by Democrats, while ‘red’ states do that with Republicans. So although each state is not homogeneous, over time, the policies in place do reflect the general priorities of each party.
If you are LGBT or would like the option of having the full range of family planning services readily available or you are poor and need the services provided by Medicare expansion, and a whole host of other services too, you would likely prefer to live in a blue state, even if your local area is more Republican.
So while it must be exasperating to have Stefanik as your congressional representative, she has little influence in enacting state policies. Surely living where you are would be preferable to living in (say) Missouri even if your congressional representative there was a Democrat?
Mano,
That’s not my point. Heck, we could drill down to individual households and find “red” and “blue” people in the same unit. My point is that it is foolish to talk about dividing up the country into new, smaller countries, or having some states join other countries because they’re “all the same color”. People look at a map and they see “blue, blue, blue” when they see the Northeast: New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts, etc. (OK, New Hampshire and Maine can sometimes be a little weird but you get the point). The idea that this region would welcome becoming a new country because then we get to leave the “red states” behind is absurd. I would wager that there would be riots in the streets if it were to come to pass. I don’t think most people who don’t live here really understand the animosity that many rural and ex-urban New Yorkers have toward the cities, especially NYC, mainly because of all the Democrats who live there. For example, there has been a long-brewing sentiment in conservative circles (at least since I was a child and likely before then) that NY should be split in two, the border being just north of Yonkers. The hate toward downstate is palpable. While biking the back roads near my house I see modified Gadsden flags that say “Don’t tread on Upstate”. Confederate flags or stickers on pickup trucks are not surprising.
This is a beautiful state for anyone who likes the outdoors but I would not live here if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a large urban population (NYC, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, et al.) that skews the state government Democratic. My county is “red” but, fortunately, the state has a larger influence on my life. I am lucky that I get to enjoy the natural beauty of the place while living under Democratic policies.
Take care of your populace, they are capable of producing more. Also is wealth measured in terms of intellectul property? In which case multiple tech hubs or ‘silicon valleys’ exist here in California. For whatever reason wealth is being assigned to AI so that might explain it right there.
The general wealth of California, and the state budget do not always conform. Those who are in the higher income brackets tend to make their money in bursts and busts. The fires are going to be a major loss in two ways. The direct loss is the things and lives burned. The indirect loss will be the delay in filling date for state taxes until October.