Talk:Economy of California

GDP Per Capita
The $76,000 number on the right is apparently far off, and your very #3 link says "$71,006 for 2017"

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=california+gdp+per+capita

Also, the following additional source says "The GDP per capita of California was $65,160 in 2017:"

https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/0400000US36-0400000US06/New_York-California/economy.gdp.per_capita_gdp?year=2017

Odd
Article states « GDP per capita $66,310 (2016)[2] »

But when you follow the link [2] it points to a 2014 documenta about " "STATE PERSONAL INCOME 2013"".. and the figure is around 47 K$...(47,401$, Ranking 12th)...

Old comments
Article seems kind of biased & makes vague generalizations. I didn't finish reading because of that.

The first line with "dominant force" needs elaboration, but it's not really appropriate language anyway. It ties to the GSP which is 17% of the U.S. GDP, while only having 12% of the population. One could also go on that despite that, Californians have slightly less than the U.S. average to spend on retail(read that from Cal. Dept. of Finance). That would be due to, mainly, the high cost of housing.
 * AGREED: This is inappropriate language. I already omitted the second sentence. We should just scrap the rest. I suggest we write a proper introduction from repurposing parts of existing subsections, such as "Gross domestic product (GDP)," "Economic regions," and "Sectors." This also will force us to retool the article's content. Caspcasp (talk) 03:44, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Why mention the imbalance of payments (taxes, spending) in regards to the Federal Government, in the opening 2 sentence paragraph?

The shortcomings are okay. Almost all the articles in Wikipedia are unprofessional and have poor writing.68.180.38.41 06:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)68.180.38.41 07:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

This factoid should be removed from the head of the article, because it does not add credibility to the rest of text. Please note that California's relative tax burden, specifically at the federal level as compared to other states, is a matter of opinion. Federal payouts of tax revenues to states fluctuate year-to-year. California may not get much of its federal tax dollars back in real expenditures in recent years, but it often has received more than its fair share in some years past and might receive more than it could ever dream in some years futures to help pay for hi-speed rail or whatever it fancies. Plus, California depends heavily on the infrastructure of nearby states like Colorado, Nevada and Arizona to deliver water, electricity and goods. Federal funds in those states ultimately benefit California beyond measure. Even so, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT EVERY STATE WILL GET MORE MONEY THAN THEY ORIGINALLY GAVE THIS YEAR DUE TO THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND EXTRAORDINARY SPENDING. Caspcasp (talk) 14:13, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

(Also note discussion subsection Talk:Economy_of_California.

Attention needed
I added this parameter to the banner because of the comments above [and below]. This article clearly needs a better lead paragraph. The information is too disparate, with no flow from one section to another. The EoC category needs to be populated, as well. USDOC's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by State, 2005 looks like a good source of data to address the Ag v. Tech GDP issue. If this looks like a good idea, perhaps somebody who knows how could format this a little better. I'll come back and add the rest of the data, if nobody else does first, and move it to the article.

Edited the "Regions" section
I didn't feel like logging in, so I'm stating it here. Check the history if you need to, but all I did was condense that unbearably huge long sentence and partitioned it into four bullets. 66.31.138.50 (talk) 08:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)SammyJames

California as an independent nation
The World Factbook would place California in tenth place after (1)United States, (2)European Union, (3)China, (4)Japan, (5)India, (6)Germany, (7)United Kingdom, (8)France and (9)Italy.

see link below http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

The World Factbook uses PPP dollars to compare economies, which is something they come in for a lot of criticism by economists for. PPP valuations are not good measures of such widely varying economies as those of the U.S., Japan and Europe versus those of China or India.

Market values may fluctuate, but they represent real current costs, which is especially important for an economy like China's which is wholly dependent on trade. It doesn't matter if you can purchase a Big Mac for 1/5th the amount in China that you would pay in the United States (which is roughly how China's GDP is inflated to the #2 spot by the World Factbook) if the majority of your economic growth relies on purchasing commodities at MARKET VALUES from other nations in order to create goods that are then sold at MARKET VALUES to other nations.

I should also mention that referring to the United States as "the combined United States" is rather unusual.

Housing
Please expand the housing section (particularly the housing bubble section).

How bout something like this. If California was an Independant nation, it would need an intervention from the World Bank or IMF. Sure its conjecture, but so is "If California was". The word "If" implies conjecture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.53.157.193 (talk) 06:06, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

economy of CA / agriculture
How is it true: 1. Agriculture is no. 1 sector in CA generating about $27bn revenue. 2. Exports of computer electronics is about $40bn.

aren't these 2 statements contradictory?

if one reviews BEA and CA government sites for statistics, it's easy to verify that agriculture is by no means the largest sector of CA economy.


 * AGREED! Let's see, the $27 billion quote for the agriculture industry is a TINY chunk less than 2% of the CA gross state product. The Intel Corporation alone, which actually employs more workers in Oregon and Arizona than California had nearly $40 billion in revenue last year. I'm fairly certain there are California industries larger than agriculture IF the $27 billion quote is correct.  Agriculture products are very simple and cheap and thus require massive volume to actually add to a large revenue number.  I'm SURE many areas of the service industry (restaurants, retail) have much larger revenue than $27 billion.  And if there are less than 50 industries defined, then LOGICALLY at least one of them must be more than 2% of California's GDP and thus larger than agriculture...
 * Of course, you can always arbitrarily define "industries" to all be very specific (like computer/electronics industry is split into integrated circuits, database software, optical storage, mainframes, etc all as separate industries) while leaving agriculture (including crops, livestock, genetics, etc) as one massive catch-all industry and that may win the crown by cheating... -Rory77 12:12, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It is not true that the Central Valley has the greatest disparity of wealth. It is also not true that migrant farmworkers earn less than the minimum wage. Where are the citations supporting these claims? The greatest disparity of wealth is in the coastal counties, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego. These counties have very wealthy people and very poor people. The Central Valley does not have large numbers of very wealthy people. Also, it is illegal for anyone to work for less than the minimum wage, farmworkers included. These misleading statements need to be removed, unless some verifiable, reputable source can be found to support them. Scott fs (talk) 17:57, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Population and area

GDP in Current Dollars, 2005 [Millions of dollars]

--Hjal 23:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Cannabis production
"Harvesting of marijuana continues to account for over $1 billion each year, making it the number-one cash crop in the number-one agricultural region in the US." --''California: The Rough Guide. (2003) Rough Guides. p. 803. ISBN 184353049X

One of dozens of sources. Viriditas (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Tax Burden
The line: "In 2008, when measured as a percentage of GDP, California had the 6th highest tax burden of the fifty states. [17]" should be removed. For one thing, the source of the material is the Tax Foundation originally, and should be referenced to them. Secondly, The US Government Census figures would be more appropriate to use for a number of reasons: They are more objective, they use a standardized accounting method, and the Tax Foundation is an advocacy group whose figures are problematic or questionable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mcdruid (talk • contribs) 07:27, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The data from Tax Foundation is cited by many other organizations, including CNN. Interestingly, California has gone from 20th in 2005 to 6th now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scott fs (talk • contribs) 18:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

While the Tax Foundation is indeed pro-taxpayer in its viewpoint, it should have no reason to be biased as the rankings BETWEEN states. After all, it is a DC-based outfit -- not California-based like the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Budget deficit
I added this, but someone erased it, claiming it was crystal balling. I disagree with the claim that it was crystal balling, because the info is about the past, not the future:

A May 3, 2009 opinion column by George Will in the Washington Post stated, "If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit..."[40]

Grundle2600 (talk) 01:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's an arbitrary, non-noteworthy, statistical observation. Although George Will has many interesting things to say, the fact that he did so in this case is itself anything remarkable either.  Wikidemon (talk) 16:46, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * See also a discussion on the same material at Talk:California.   Will Beback    talk    20:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well
You folks above certainly seem to have at least some level of education about economics in general and the economy of california in particular. Why don't you get together and write an article about it? At the moment, what is on here seems to compose chiefly of two carefully constructed sections a) how 'big' california would be if it were an independent country, which really merits little more than a sentence, and b) two long lists of the richest and poorest towns in california, which is pretty much entirely irrelevant to the subject at hand: the structure and function of the californian economy. I would like to know why, for example, if the state has the 6th highest tax burden of any state, it is nonetheless the case that 60% of its tax revenue comes from capital gains on the wealthiest 3%. etc. There is nothing here. This article is almost useless, and at a time when the subject is one of the most important in the encyclopedia Duracell (talk) 10:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

added various tags
including an alteration to the one at the top of this talk page. This is one of the most important topics on the PLANET in July 2009, and I certainly think wikipedia project California should regard it as a top importance article. It is certainly more important than the top importance rated article  Lake Tahoe Duracell (talk) 11:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

image needs an article
File:Woodruff Paddy Fields.jpg is a great image (not mine), but there is no detailed section or article about california agriculture. thats really strange. its a major part of the california economy. I dont think this image fits here very well, but maybe we can create a stub on california agriculture?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 08:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Usefullness / Orignal research of table
What is the encyclopedic usefulness of table comparing a State o other countries. It is a table more appropriate for a trivia book or something like that. Also, it is original research as the table (and data about California) is not found in the source. Chico Venancio (talk) 21:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Comparison with the world (2011)
The text below has been added and reverted. That means that it should be brought here for discussion. Please do not add the text to the article until there has been a discussion and a consensus. — billinghurst  sDrewth  04:57, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

==Comparison with the world (2011)==

A quick personal opinion, the table itself seems that it should belong to a separate article possibly as a List of states by GDP (or similar. My reasoning is that being a list of countries to which many articles could point then it should be on its own, rather than being reproduced multiple times in articles. Then this article can have a comment on the position of California and a link to the relevant article. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As another note, the table really needs to be cited, such figures need to be justified. — billinghurst  sDrewth  05:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Missing
Where's the discussion of the defense industry, or the wine business? This seems to be a very thin article!. DOR (HK) (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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Tourism
What percent of the economy in CA does tourism comprise? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.145.103 (talk) 04:30, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The website listed does not answer the question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.145.103 (talk) 04:32, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

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Water use by agriculture
Need an up to date statistics on percentages of water used in California, particularly by agricultural sectors. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:55, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think the article has any statistics about water use in California, much less up-to-date ones. We could easily find and add them, but we would have to decide whether water devoted to environmental purposes is "used".  My understanding is that, of water actually used by people, 80% is used for agriculture and 20% is used for everything else, but half the water is "used" by the environment, and people may have strong opinions about whether that half should be included or not.   AgnosticAphid  talk 19:12, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I think we should probably use whatever definitions used in California water law. User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:44, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * In Colorado, where Prior-appropriation water rights apply, certain environmental uses are considered beneficial uses, for example, maintaining stream flow. I think you are using "use" to mean a use recognized under state law. In general, water law is state law. California has a mixed system which recognized some riparian rights. User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I personally feel like it would be silly to include the "use" of water by the environment, because this article is focused on the economy of California, not California's water supply, and so it seems like the only relevant water is the water actually used by people for economically productive purposes. You can read more about the disputes over these figures here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Uses_of_water .  Basically I feel like what is relevant for the purposes of this article is that agriculture uses 4x as much water as everything else combined; for the economy of california, who really cares what portion of the water flows into the ocean, whether or not that water could be recovered, and to what extent that un-diverted water improves water quality for the water that is diverted?   AgnosticAphid  talk 23:09, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

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Top 30 companies list
I noticed the "Top 30 publicly traded companies in California for 2017" table needs to be fixed. One of the companies is listed twice, which made me review the sourced article. I was going to update it myself but then was thrown off when I noticed Google wasn't actually listed in the original source unless I missed it. I'll come back to this but thought I'd put it here in case anyone wants to tackle it before I get to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cliffsurf (talk • contribs) 22:11, 23 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem was introduced by this 09:48, 19 April 2018 edit by, which updated the list from 2011 to 2017. We're probably due for another update. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

California 4th largest economy ahead of Germany doesn't make sense?
This claims California's GSP of $3.37 T puts it ahead of Germany, and then links to Germany having a GDP of $4.03 T? 81.107.39.90 (talk) 14:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

This claim that California is the world's 4th largest economy also cites an article that claims California is poised to become world's 4th largest economy, not is. Fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.39.90 (talk) 14:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Gdp
Gdp per capita link [2] leads to a page that doesn't mention total GDP or populatin 176.72.99.240 (talk) 07:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

2024 ranking
If California has a gdp of 3.89 trillion in 2024, then it is ahead of the UK, but not India. India's GDP is 4.11 trillion in 2024 (https://cleartax.in/s/world-gdp-ranking-list). I think we are comparing California's 2024 numbers with India's 2021 data. 71.127.215.194 (talk) 16:19, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Wrong terms and wrong comparison
California has a GRDP, not a GDP since it's not a country. Also, it does not make any sense to compare different economies in nominal prices because this value reflects prices for electricity, haircuts, bread, etc, which are times higher in California (and the USA as a whole) than in other countries. Simply because you have higher prices does not mean your economy is larger. Since the USA has had chronical trade deficits for decades, the idea that the USA produces a lot of competitive goods and services is obviously false. 94.102.49.189 (talk) 21:28, 16 May 2024 (UTC)