The 2019 economy was mediocre in these parts. Now it's worse

While crazy stuff happens in the present day, economic news from the past continues to come out, and one of those regular reports caught my eye yesterday. It was the Bureau of Economic Analysis giving out their state-by-state GDP report for Q4 2019 as well as the full-year totals for 2019.

If you look at the annual rate of growth for 2019, you’ll see a noticeable “East vs West” divide in growth, and the Midwest fares especially poorly. Wisconsin was 38th in the nation at a 1.4% rate, and the entire Midwest lagged behind the US rate of 2.3%.

On a quarterly basis, Wisconsin was in the middle of the pack for the US over the last 3 months of 2019, with a growth rate that matched the US rate of 2.1%. But hey, at least we beat most of our neighbors!

The BEA also revised all state GDP totals going back to 2010, and it illustrates that Wisconsin’s GDP growth has been lame for the better part of 2 years. We have only exceeded the US rate of growth once in the last 7 quarters, and we have not had any quarter with a growth rate above 2.2% since March 2018.

Which again illustrates a point that cannot be made enough - the economy in Wisconsin and the rest of the Midwest was not going that great before the coronavirus shut things down.

Keep that in mind, because you know the excuse in GOPLand for the next 7 months will be “it was a great economy and the only reason it’s bad now is COVID-19.” It was not that great in this part of America, and these new figures from the BEA give another bit of proof of that reality.