County Economies Profiles
The NACo publications County Economies 2015: Opportunities and Challenges and County Economies 2016: Widespread Recovery, Slower Growth provide county profiles.
Please note that each profile contains the “Top 5 Specialized Industries by Employment.” The Census Bureau and Moody’s Analytics are referenced as data sources.
Gross Domestic Product and Other Economic Indicators
The County Economic Output Trends: County Economies 2020, published by the National Association of Counties, assesses economic performance in the nation’s 3,069 counties by looking at changes in four indicators. These indicators include: the number of jobs, unemployment rates, economic output and median home prices.
While county economies have bounced back to some extent from the doldrums of the Great Recession, the report indicates that gains have been uneven across each of the four metrics, and have also varied based on each county’s size and location.
Economic output is examined in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total value of goods and services produced by a county economy. Declines took place last year in 36 percent of county economies, according to the report. These declines were mostly concentrated in smaller counties located in southern and midwestern states.
Ten percent of the counties that experienced declines have economies that depend heavily on the oil and gas industry, which has been hard-hit over the last year by plummeting oil prices.
NACo also offers the County Explorer where you can get county-level data on the workforce, economic and demographic situation counties are facing.
