10 US States With the Highest GDP per Person

California and Texas dominate rankings of total state output, but the order changes when GDP is divided by population. Smaller states with concentrated high-value industries can move much higher, while large consumer economies fall back toward the middle of the pack.

GDP per person is not the same as income per person. It measures production located in a state, so profits earned by corporations and output generated by capital-intensive industries can lift the figure without flowing directly into household pay.

Finance and technology raise output per worker

New York and Massachusetts benefit from finance, professional services, technology, research and life sciences. Washington's technology and aerospace industries also support unusually high output relative to population.

These sectors create large amounts of value with fewer workers than retail or hospitality, which raises state-level GDP per person.

Energy states can rank highly for a different reason

North Dakota and Wyoming can post high output per resident because energy production is capital-intensive and their populations are small. Commodity prices can therefore move their rankings sharply from one year to the next.

That volatility is a reminder that high GDP per person does not always indicate a diversified economy.

Use the measure with household data

For businesses, GDP per person is useful as a rough measure of economic intensity. For workers, disposable income, wages and housing costs are more relevant.

A strong state economy is best judged by several measures together: output, productivity, employment, income and the cost of participating in the local market.