In the US, we have 50 economic laboratories (or states, as normal people call them) in which to conduct policy experiments. But until recently, it was difficult to assess the results. This is because prices vary enormously across the country. In my personal experience, $1000 in Kirksville, Missouri will buy a lot more than $1000 in Seattle, Washington. As a result, incomes are not directly comparable across states and regions. If average income in State X is $50,000 while it's $40,000 in State Y, we shouldn't assume that State X is richer. If everything in State X is twice as expensive, then its residents actually have less buying power.
So the price level in a state matters, and if we don't account for it, then our results might be misleading. Fortunately, GeoFRED now has price data from all 50 states. The Regional Price Parity Index is scaled so that it equals 100 for the average across all the states. I combined this with data on state GDP and population. The result is GDP per capita data that is adjusted for the state's price level. Here are a two maps with the results for 2015.
And here is the table with the numbers. The richest state is...Washington D.C., which isn't a state. The state with the highest real GDP per capita is North Dakota. Missouri is around the middle of the pack. There is a huge amount of variation across states. North Dakota's real GDP per capita is nearly double that of Mississippi. Adjusting for state price levels can make a large difference. For example, in nominal dollars, Hawaii appears to be doing well, but once the high cost of living is factored in, it is actually one of the poorer states.
Rank Real GDP PC State
1 154,421.3373 District of Columbia
2 80060.5584 North Dakota
3 72652.66931 Delaware
4 69851.81862 Wyoming
5 68527.06189 Alaska
6 67302.29894 Massachusetts
7 66127.30755 Nebraska
8 65776.80559 Connecticut
9 63491.70446 New York
10 62362.12019 Iowa
11 62209.54228 South Dakota
12 61205.92307 Minnesota
13 60680.76384 Texas
14 60324.22161 Illinois
15 59490.66586 Washington
16 58668.9758 Ohio
17 57786.80952 Kansas
18 56566.837 Pennsylvania
19 56347.08586 California
20 56281.47129 Louisiana
21 56165.73898 Virginia
22 56162.43017 Wisconsin
23 55740.34301 Maryland
24 55720.95019 Colorado
25 55696.53155 New Jersey
26 55581.05966 Indiana
27 54604.03253 North Carolina
28 54233.0421 Oregon
29 53946.792 Missouri
30 53522.22254 Oklahoma
31 53412.85035 Rhode Island
32 53408.90286 Tennessee
33 53177.80317 New Hampshire
34 53101.21558 Georgia
35 51397.26629 Utah
36 50750.32633 Michigan
37 49917.14963 Nevada
38 48950.75208 Kentucky
39 47633.61484 Vermont
40 47604.77343 Hawaii
41 47473.56822 New Mexico
42 47465.52086 Alabama
43 46856.86443 Montana
44 45662.75954 South Carolina
45 45598.63808 Arkansas
46 44836.66775 West Virginia
47 44438.22669 Arizona
48 44004.59498 Maine
49 43877.81112 Florida
50 42403.47641 Idaho
51 41085.36712 Mississippi
Sources:
Regional Price Parities: All Items by State (Index) from GeoFRED
Resident Population by State (Thousands of Persons) from GeoFRED
Total Gross Domestic Product by State (Millions of Dollars) from GeoFRED
The maps were created using Google's Fusion Tables
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