Localized price data from the BEA show specific patterns of growth and inflation reshaped the economic map of the United States in 2024.

Measuring state-level prices with adequate precision requires a lot of data collection, and there’s always a long lag between the time period measured and the release of the data. The BEA has now released its data on state-level prices and inflation for 2024, a year when US growth patterns diverged from their pandemic-era patterns.

California, believe it or not, was the fastest-growing state economy in 2024, once you adjust for inflation. Typically, California has featured about average nominal growth rates and higher-than-average inflation rates, resulting in lower-than-average real growth rates. But in 2024, that longstanding pattern reversed.

Indeed, the entire Pacific Coast did well in 2024, as did much of New England and the Carolinas. The Mountain West and the Midwest suffered by comparison.



How much of the growth in the Pacific Coast and New England states came from faster nominal income growth, and how much came from lower inflation? To answer this question, let’s look at nominal growth rates first (Figure 2). The Carolinas were the fastest-growing states by nominal income, followed by Idaho and California. The Dakotas and Nebraska stand out for slow nominal income growth. Most of New England is comfortably, but not dramatically, above average.



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