While I’m browsing the grocery store and thinking about when bread was cheaper, it certainly doesn’t feel like the economy is growing, but the U.S. Department of Commerce has said the economy is expected to grow faster than expected in 2023.
But what about Illinois’ economy? Is it growing at the same rate as the rest of the country? A new report says not.
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methodology
To determine the states with the strongest economies, personal finance website WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across three key dimensions.
- Economic activity
- Economic health
- Innovation Potential
WalletHub researchers broke these three main categories down into 28 different indicators that are weighted from 1 to 100 depending on their relevance to driving the economy. Each category can earn up to 33.3 points, with the highest score being 100, representing the best economic performance.
The most important indicators for the ranking include the change in GDP from 2022 to 2023, Deloitte Fast 500 List. The full list of indicators can be found on the survey website, along with an interactive map.
Where Illinois Falls
Illinois received a score of 38.50, ranking 39th. The score breakdown is based on the state’s ranking in three categories:
- Economic activity: 28 of 51 results
- Economic health: 51 out of 51
- Innovative potential: 26 of 51
The Prairie state ranked worst among all states in economic health and also performed below average in two other categories.
The report weighted the health of the economy by a state’s unemployment rate, percentage of the population living in poverty, change in nonfarm payrolls, change in the civilian labor force and median annual household income.
Some other factors that didn’t have as much of an impact on the score include the number of uninsured people in the state, but Illinois’s rate of uninsured people is gradually decreasing from 7% in 2021 to 6.6% in 2022. Census.gov.
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Top 10 states with the strongest economies
- Washington, 71.10 out of 100
- Utah, 62 out of 100
- Massachusetts, 61.52 out of 100
- Texas, 60.08 out of 100
- California, 59.63 out of 100
- Colorado, 58.89 out of 100
- Florida, 55.75 out of 100
- North Carolina, 55.08 out of 100
- District of Columbia, 54.15 out of 100
- Arizona, 53.69 out of 100
Top 5 states with the worst economies
47. Louisiana 32.60/100
48. Arkansas 31.77/100
49. West Virginia 31.13/100
50. Hawaii 29.79/100
51. Mississippi, 26.67 out of 100
Claire Grant writes about business, growth, development and other news for The State Journal-Register. She can be reached at CLGrant@gannett.com and on X (formerly Twitter): @Claire_Granted.