Exploring California's Economic Growth and Challenges

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During the past decade, the state of California has been one of the fastest growing economies of the United States. The substantial growth has positioned California as the top one economy in the United States, with a gross domestic production of approximately 2.3 trillion dollars for the fiscal year 2014. The state of California has also ranked number eight in the largest world economies, passing countries like Italy and Russia (Young, 2014). Although many factors have led to this growth, the most influential have been related to the high investment of private industries and the increases on international trade and the real estate sector.
The state of California accounts for 13.2% of the United States production and after falling behind the U.S. percentage growth rate on 2008, California has experienced a constant recovery. After 2012, the state has constantly reached higher percentage growth rates than the U.S, reaching 2.8% on 2014 compared to the 2.2 % of the overall U.S. (Garosi & Sisney, 2015). Since 2004, the state of California increased its GDP by 29%. The state started with a GDP of $1,643,908 dollars on 2004 and constantly increased its GDP reaching $2,305,921 dollars on 2014. The state only faced declines as a product of the depression when on 2009 its GDP declined 4% from $1,997,225 dollars to $1,915,723 dollars. Although this declined was produced by a combination of variables, the biggest declines occurred in the trade sector that declined by 6.4% and the private industry sector that declined by 5%. The private industry sector alone has increased 40% since 2004 and now accounts for approximately 85% of the production of the state of California. With projected growth rates of 2.8% California’s GDP is expected to con...

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... the last decade, it can be concluded that the state and economic experts have failed to create mechanisms that could aid and promote growth in those marginal cities that slow down the state’s economic growth. Different regulations, as well as incentives, could be implemented in those cities to promote the creation of jobs and that way lower the unemployment rate. With the expansion of the GDP, the cost of living has also raised for the citizens of California, causing millions of people who do not have equal access to high disposable personal incomes to live in poverty. In the long run, this huge gap between the developments of the different areas could really harm the economy for the state of California, by dividing the population into poor and rich areas, and making it impossible for the poorer population to put up with the overall high cost of living of the state.

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