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From the original article and chart (not the current linked site): > "California has a labor force of 19.3 million compared to the labor force in the UK of 33.

From the original article and chart (not the current linked site): > "California has a labor force of 19.3 million compared to the labor force in the UK of 33.8 million (World Bank data here). Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output last year as California! ... Further, California as a separate country would have been the 5th largest economy in the world last year, ahead of the UK ($2.62 trillion), India ($2.61 trillion) and France ($2.58 trillion)."

mhandley 8y ago
That shows the power of immigration. I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US, though that's significant too. California has such high GDP per capita because it draws well educated people from the rest of the US. If it was an independent country, it couldn't do that so easily.
- rjsw 8y ago
  The UK has drawn well educated people from the rest of the EU.
  - mhandley 8y ago
    Yes, and it's the main reason our economy hasn't tanked. But there have traditionally been more barriers to movement from the EU, not least language, so the effect is somewhat less, and easy immigration from the EU hasn't been going on for nearly so long. And don't get me started on Brexit...
- zer00eyz 8y ago
  > I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US... Migration, or internal migration is probably a better term here. It isn't just the migration either - it is the nature of what happens. The top cities/areas for several industries are here, and many secondary ones as well. Film production, software/web, lots of aerospace. It also helps that a fair bit basic needs are provided back to the state by itself (Central Valley farming).
  - newlaptopnewacc 8y ago
    It was just some remoaner opportunism (brexit bitterness).
- toxic_ 8y ago
  Indeed, it illustrates that immigration is a pernicious force that gives rise to extreme inequity, draining talent and skills from less prosperous regions and concentrating them in one area in a destructive cycle. A most undesirable state of affairs.
- rayiner 8y ago
  No it doesn't. California is 8th in terms of GDP per capita within the U.S. If you look at the list of states that are within +/- 10% of California's GDP per capita, you've New York and Massachusetts (which are suffering from out-migration), and Colorado, Nebraska, and Minnesota (none of which are major targets of internal or external immigration).
  - mhandley 8y ago
    While your data are no doubt correct, this doesn't stop it being true for California. Just because a state is now suffering from out-migration doesn't indicate it didn't become wealthy from migration in the past, nor does it indicate it is getting poorer now due to that out-migration. To know that, you'd have to measure the economic contribution of the people moving in and of the people leaving. It is possible for the GDP per capita to increase and simultaneously for the population to decrease slowly. Would be interesting to know where the wealth comes from in Colorado, Nebraska and Minnesota. I don't know enough about them to comment. Edit: some data here: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/31/california-migration-come-for-jobs-leave-to-retire/ https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/31/california-migration-c... "The top relocation motivation for 65 percent of households arriving by van said they came to California for jobs. Only 43 percent of those departing by moving van described the move was work-related. The jobs rush means your new neighbors are likely wealthier than the people they replaced. United’s study showed 68 percent of arriving households make $100,000 or more annually; just 63 percent of those departing by moving van make above that threshold."
    - rayiner 8y ago
      OP made the assertion, they've got the burden of providing data in support of it. I'm just explaining that the data he did offer doesn't support his conclusion. Wealth in Colorado, Minnesota, etc., comes from the same place as anywhere else. The U.S. is a rich country with lots of productive industries. Tech is actually a pretty small portion of that (5-6% of GDP, 3% of employment). E.g. Target is based in Minnesota, and has double the revenues of Facebook.
      - 8y ago
- kiliantics 8y ago
  I think it just means CA has managed to outsource more labour than the UK. Think of all the workers in China making Apple phones, or all the Uber drivers in the world forking over a chunk of their business to people in CA. It would be interesting to see the results if we could compute a per capita GDP that was actually divided among all the workers that support a given region's economy, regardless of whether they live in that region.
brightball 8y ago
I've always been curious to find out if there is a study of California's location relative to it's GDP. How much of the GDP is based on coastline, major ports, access to imports from China/Southeast Asia that get distributed to the rest of the US, US based companies located there with manufacturing based in China and even Mexico. Geographically, it seems like it's in an ideal location to hold business HQ's with access to less expensive labor for imported goods. Is there a study like this out there? You compare that to the UK that doesn't have any clearly accessible inexpensive labor force option and it makes you wonder.
- bane 8y ago
  California...and the West Coast of the U.S. is an interesting place in that it's geographically divided from the rest of the country by a couple of major mountain ranges and large deserts. In addition, something like almost 50% of the state is unusable federal land (national parks, military bases, etc.) Despite this, it's one of the major agricultural producers in the world due to it's variety of climate zones and long growing seasons. I'm not sure of the current status, but agriculture used to be a larger industry for the state than tech and film combined. One might think that its geographic location would be a problem, and cross-Pacific trade isn't as big as cross-Atlantic, but it's just so large and populated as a state, and it turns out that intra-Americas trade is far dominant to either oceanic competitor. Just selling its products and services to the U.S. alone brings it enormous economic activity. But it turns out that most of what it produces also has ample foreign markets as well (tech, film, food).
  - freeopinion 8y ago
    > cross-Pacific trade isn't as big as cross-Atlantic Huh? Newport Beach is the busiest port in the world. Cross-Pacific trade dwarfs cross-Atlantic trade.
    - sizzzzlerz 8y ago
      Where'd you find that? I googled for busiest ports and found LA is the 17th and Long Beach the 21st busiest in the world. And they are totally dwarfed by Shanghai and Singapore.
skratlo 8y ago
> Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output Look at it the other way, the UK can house & feed more people with the same economic output, therefore being more efficient at those tasks.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Does that mean the Central African Republic is the most efficient economy on the planet?
  - tomp 8y ago
    Does the Central African Republic have a comparable standard of living to the UK and California?
  - adjkant 8y ago
    No, because the quality of life is not similar. I think the parent of your post implicitly used that quality of life and poverty rates between the two are (relatively) comparable.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      How comparable, exactly? If QoL in California is better in proportion to the workforce disparity then the UK isn’t any more efficient. If it goes the other way then the UK is even more efficient. Assuming they’re the same doesn’t make any sense.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        If they're more or less the same, then assuming they're the same makes perfect sense.
        mikeash 8y ago
        That depends on how close “more or less the same” actually is. Within 10%? Sure. Within an order of magnitude? That would swamp the other difference. I have no idea which way it is, but spinning lower GDP per worker as more efficient doesn’t make any sense to me.
amelius 8y ago
California is just better at attracting investors.
sandworm101 8y ago
It's all rather arbitrary. As with every other state, California's economy is tied to lots of workers outside its boarders. It isn't a country. It isn't surrounded by water. So it is harder to capture exactly how much activity happens within California in comparison to how much happens in an island nation like the UK.
georgeecollins 8y ago
California is also the economic engine of a larger region, where UK is a whole country. If you compare per capita GDP of London it is probably higher than California. But the truth is my native state is an economic and cultural miracle. Yay.

mhandley 8y ago

That shows the power of immigration. I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US, though that's significant too. California has such high GDP per capita because it draws well educated people from the rest of the US. If it was an independent country, it couldn't do that so easily.

rjsw 8y ago
The UK has drawn well educated people from the rest of the EU.
- mhandley 8y ago
  Yes, and it's the main reason our economy hasn't tanked. But there have traditionally been more barriers to movement from the EU, not least language, so the effect is somewhat less, and easy immigration from the EU hasn't been going on for nearly so long. And don't get me started on Brexit...
zer00eyz 8y ago
> I'm not even talking about immigration from outside the US... Migration, or internal migration is probably a better term here. It isn't just the migration either - it is the nature of what happens. The top cities/areas for several industries are here, and many secondary ones as well. Film production, software/web, lots of aerospace. It also helps that a fair bit basic needs are provided back to the state by itself (Central Valley farming).
- newlaptopnewacc 8y ago
  It was just some remoaner opportunism (brexit bitterness).
toxic_ 8y ago
Indeed, it illustrates that immigration is a pernicious force that gives rise to extreme inequity, draining talent and skills from less prosperous regions and concentrating them in one area in a destructive cycle. A most undesirable state of affairs.
rayiner 8y ago
No it doesn't. California is 8th in terms of GDP per capita within the U.S. If you look at the list of states that are within +/- 10% of California's GDP per capita, you've New York and Massachusetts (which are suffering from out-migration), and Colorado, Nebraska, and Minnesota (none of which are major targets of internal or external immigration).
- mhandley 8y ago
  While your data are no doubt correct, this doesn't stop it being true for California. Just because a state is now suffering from out-migration doesn't indicate it didn't become wealthy from migration in the past, nor does it indicate it is getting poorer now due to that out-migration. To know that, you'd have to measure the economic contribution of the people moving in and of the people leaving. It is possible for the GDP per capita to increase and simultaneously for the population to decrease slowly. Would be interesting to know where the wealth comes from in Colorado, Nebraska and Minnesota. I don't know enough about them to comment. Edit: some data here: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/31/california-migration-come-for-jobs-leave-to-retire/ https://www.ocregister.com/2018/01/31/california-migration-c... "The top relocation motivation for 65 percent of households arriving by van said they came to California for jobs. Only 43 percent of those departing by moving van described the move was work-related. The jobs rush means your new neighbors are likely wealthier than the people they replaced. United’s study showed 68 percent of arriving households make $100,000 or more annually; just 63 percent of those departing by moving van make above that threshold."
  - rayiner 8y ago
    OP made the assertion, they've got the burden of providing data in support of it. I'm just explaining that the data he did offer doesn't support his conclusion. Wealth in Colorado, Minnesota, etc., comes from the same place as anywhere else. The U.S. is a rich country with lots of productive industries. Tech is actually a pretty small portion of that (5-6% of GDP, 3% of employment). E.g. Target is based in Minnesota, and has double the revenues of Facebook.
    - 8y ago
kiliantics 8y ago
I think it just means CA has managed to outsource more labour than the UK. Think of all the workers in China making Apple phones, or all the Uber drivers in the world forking over a chunk of their business to people in CA. It would be interesting to see the results if we could compute a per capita GDP that was actually divided among all the workers that support a given region's economy, regardless of whether they live in that region.

brightball 8y ago

I've always been curious to find out if there is a study of California's location relative to it's GDP. How much of the GDP is based on coastline, major ports, access to imports from China/Southeast Asia that get distributed to the rest of the US, US based companies located there with manufacturing based in China and even Mexico. Geographically, it seems like it's in an ideal location to hold business HQ's with access to less expensive labor for imported goods. Is there a study like this out there? You compare that to the UK that doesn't have any clearly accessible inexpensive labor force option and it makes you wonder.

bane 8y ago
California...and the West Coast of the U.S. is an interesting place in that it's geographically divided from the rest of the country by a couple of major mountain ranges and large deserts. In addition, something like almost 50% of the state is unusable federal land (national parks, military bases, etc.) Despite this, it's one of the major agricultural producers in the world due to it's variety of climate zones and long growing seasons. I'm not sure of the current status, but agriculture used to be a larger industry for the state than tech and film combined. One might think that its geographic location would be a problem, and cross-Pacific trade isn't as big as cross-Atlantic, but it's just so large and populated as a state, and it turns out that intra-Americas trade is far dominant to either oceanic competitor. Just selling its products and services to the U.S. alone brings it enormous economic activity. But it turns out that most of what it produces also has ample foreign markets as well (tech, film, food).
- freeopinion 8y ago
  > cross-Pacific trade isn't as big as cross-Atlantic Huh? Newport Beach is the busiest port in the world. Cross-Pacific trade dwarfs cross-Atlantic trade.
  - sizzzzlerz 8y ago
    Where'd you find that? I googled for busiest ports and found LA is the 17th and Long Beach the 21st busiest in the world. And they are totally dwarfed by Shanghai and Singapore.

skratlo 8y ago

> Amazingly, it required a labor force 75% larger (and 14.5 million more people) in the UK to produce the same economic output Look at it the other way, the UK can house & feed more people with the same economic output, therefore being more efficient at those tasks.

mikeash 8y ago
Does that mean the Central African Republic is the most efficient economy on the planet?
- tomp 8y ago
  Does the Central African Republic have a comparable standard of living to the UK and California?
- adjkant 8y ago
  No, because the quality of life is not similar. I think the parent of your post implicitly used that quality of life and poverty rates between the two are (relatively) comparable.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    How comparable, exactly? If QoL in California is better in proportion to the workforce disparity then the UK isn’t any more efficient. If it goes the other way then the UK is even more efficient. Assuming they’re the same doesn’t make any sense.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      If they're more or less the same, then assuming they're the same makes perfect sense.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        That depends on how close “more or less the same” actually is. Within 10%? Sure. Within an order of magnitude? That would swamp the other difference. I have no idea which way it is, but spinning lower GDP per worker as more efficient doesn’t make any sense to me.

amelius 8y ago

California is just better at attracting investors.

sandworm101 8y ago

It's all rather arbitrary. As with every other state, California's economy is tied to lots of workers outside its boarders. It isn't a country. It isn't surrounded by water. So it is harder to capture exactly how much activity happens within California in comparison to how much happens in an island nation like the UK.

georgeecollins 8y ago

California is also the economic engine of a larger region, where UK is a whole country. If you compare per capita GDP of London it is probably higher than California. But the truth is my native state is an economic and cultural miracle. Yay.