The state with the lowest unemployment rate and a burgeoning population saw the sharpest increase in its GDP. The industry that pushed it to the top? Mining. While mining didn’t help the US much as a whole, it boosted North Dakota’s $31 billion GDP by almost two percentage points. Other big players in the state were real estate and wholesale trade.
By the way, the states whose GDPs shrunk last year? Wyoming and Nevada, but each only lost less than one percentage point.