Useful Stats: 2020 Industry contributions to county-level GDP

This week’s edition of Useful Stats examines the contributions to county-level GDP in 2020 by industry group. Specifically, this analysis identifies the industries that contributed the most to the economic output of each county in 2020, as well as examining the annual percent changes in industry contribution to county GDP over the previous year. Most industries experienced declines brought on by the economic recession of 2020, although some experienced growth. In 2020, the real estate and rental and leasing; professional and business services; government and government enterprises; and manufacturing industry groups were vital economic drivers in terms of both their contributions to national GDP as well as the number of counties where they were the top contributor.

The industries that contributed the most to national GDP in 2020 were real estate and rental and leasing ($2.8 trillion); followed by professional and business services ($2.7 trillion); government and government enterprises ($2.6 trillion); manufacturing ($2.4 trillion); and education services, health care, and social assistance ($1.9 trillion). The industries that contributed the least to national GDP in 2020 were other services ($419 billion); utilities ($342 billion); mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction ($182 billion); and agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting ($175 billion).

Several regional trends can be seen in the interactive map below which identifies the industry that was the top contributor to local GDP for each county in 2020. Manufacturing was the top industry in the greatest number of counties in 2020, and the map below shows that many of these counties are in the Midwest and Southeast regions. A concentration of counties where agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting was the primary contributor to 2020 GDP is located in a strip through the central states. Smaller concentrations of counties where government and government enterprises accounted for the top GDP contributor in 2020 are situated throughout the western half of the country, punctuated by even smaller clusters of counties where real estate and rental and leasing were the top industries. Pockets of counties where the real estate and rental and leasing industry was the top GDP contributor in 2020 are also located in Florida, the Atlantic Coast, New England, and the Upper Midwest. There are also several distinct concentrations of counties where mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction were the top contributors to 2020 GDP, including in west Texas, Nevada, North Dakota, and Ohio and West Virginia.

Pro-tip: Use the graphic’s toolbar and search in the upper left corner to zoom and pan in the map to get a closer view of counties.

This analysis also examines the annual percent change in industry contributions to county GDP from 2019 to 2020 to identify how the economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the output of each industry differently. Most industries experienced declines in GDP contributions from 2019 to 2020. The industries that had the greatest percentage annual losses nationally were mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (-38.4 percent); arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation, and food services (-26.5 percent); transportation and warehousing (-16.6 percent); other services (-7.8 percent); and manufacturing (-4.2 percent). However, several industries had increases in contributions to county GDP from 2019 to 2020. The industries that had the greatest percentage increases in annual contributions to national GDP from 2019 to 2020 were agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (7.3 percent); followed by finance and insurance (6.2 percent); retail trade (3.0 percent); information (2.9 percent); and utilities (2.5 percent).

The interactive graphic below shows that agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting was the industry that had the greatest growth in the greatest number of counties (925 counties); followed by utilities (472 counties); and finance and insurance (319 counties). Regional trends in the top industries for annual changes in contributions to county GDP are much less defined than for total GDP.

Click here for the data used in this analysis.