Despite doomsayer predictions for the last 20 years, the USA remains the world’s largest economy. China’s population, productivity, property, politics, energy, trade, innovation and middle-income transition challenges have undercut past predictions of its inevitable world economic leadership.
One way to get a tangible sense of the USA’s economic size and dynamism is to compare individual states with other countries. Most of us have read articles highlighting the size of California, Texas, New York, Florida or Illinois as standalone economies. They would currently rank globally as economies numbered 9, 14, 16, 25 and 30, lining up with France, Spain, Saudia Arabia, Vietnam and Argentina in the pecking order. Their men’s soccer teams are ranked 2, 8, 53, 115 and 1 in the world. The US soccer team is ranked 11th and after its recent 5-1 pasting from 12th ranked Colombia it is sure to fall several places.
The real economic strength of the US is shown by the next 27 states. Collectively their GDP is as large as India. These 27 states match up one by one with the next 36 states in the global rankings. The 27 matched countries are each proud nations. There are surprises throughout this listing. UAE 33rd largest country? Romania 34th largest? Morocco 56th largest? Qatar 60th largest? Dominican Republic 62nd largest? New Zealand 63rd largest?
Even bigger surprises arise from the pairing of US states to their global equivalents. Raise your hand if you predicted that these US states are the economic equals of their global nation partners: Georgia and Switzerland, Massachusetts and Sweden, Virginia and Ireland, Maryland and Ukraine, Arizona and Portugal, Indiana and Denmark, Minnesota and Norway, Missouri and Greece, New Jersey and Singapore, Alabama and New Zealand.
The remaining 18 US states are not so large. Their combined GDP is about the same as our neighbor Canada, which ranks 15th overall by GDP, about the same size as Spain or Texas.
On the other hand, the US soccer team was ranked 11th globally. Three of the top 5 matching countries of Argentina, France and Spain deliver 1st, 2nd and 8th FIFA ratings. The middle 27 states matching nations provide another 8 world-class soccer teams in Belgium (3), Portugal (6), Morocco (13), Switzerland (19), Denmark (21), Ukraine (22), Austria (25) and Sweden (27).
The US is an economic colossus that continues to grow faster than the rest of the “developed countries” and maintains its global economic lead. We don’t normally think of Tennessee, Colorado, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, Maryland and Missouri as global economic powerhouses, but they would EACH rank in the top 55 countries of the world as standalone economies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)
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