Should-Read: Kevin Drum: Charts of the Day: If Only Every State Could Be As “Out of Control” As California

Should-Read: Kevin Drum: Charts of the Day: If Only Every State Could Be As “Out of Control” As California: “I feel like someone ought to defend the honor of California against our president, so why not me? Here you go…

Since the state GDP series started in 1997, California GDP has grown 12 percent more than the country as a whole. The number of workers has grown 7 percent more. If only every state could be as out of control as California.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten a bit of grief from folks suggesting that this difference is just because California’s population has grown faster than the rest of the US. Not so: between 1997 and 2015, California’s population increased about 20 percent while total US population increased about 18 percent. If the difference were bigger I would have gone to the trouble of calculating GDP and employment per capita, but there wasn’t much point.