Charts of the Day: If Only Every State Could Be As “Out of Control” As California

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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.