Missouri ranked 25th in the nation for GDP growth in 2023. That’s according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which shows Missouri’s metro counties did a better job of keeping pace with the rest of the country than non-metro counties did.
Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is the value of final goods and services produced within an area. The estimates compare each county’s real GDP – adjusted for inflation – from 2022 to 2023, the most recent full year data available.
“When compared with prior periods, GDP tells us whether the economy is expanding by producing more goods and services or contracting due to less output,” according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The report is a mixed bag for the state’s rural areas.
On average, Missouri’s metro and non-metro counties grew at about the same rate – 2.6% and 2.8%, respectively. The metro rate is close to the U.S. metro growth rate of 2.7%. But the non-metro rate falls well behind the U.S. non-metro growth rate of 5.2%.
Luke Dietterle is a University of Missouri Extension specialist. He says job loss contributed to counties in Southeast and Southwest Missouri having large year-over-year declines in GDP.
“The counties that experienced the greatest losses were impacted by some relatively large plant closures,” he said.
Tyson Foods shuttered two plants in 2023, one in Stoddard County and another in McDonald County. Stoddard saw an 8.2% decrease in GDP and McDonald fell 6.1%.
At the same time the areas with the most explosive GDP growth were also non-metro counties. Monroe, Putnam and Worth Counties each had gains of more than 20% compared to 2022.
“A lot of those counties have relatively small GDPs compared to the others,” Dietterle said. “When a relatively small number has a big change, you're just going see it much more.”
Non-metro counties across the state fared better than the year before. Between 2021 and 2022, these same areas saw a 0.2% decline in GDP.
Dietterle said it can sometimes be challenging to know how to classify and group counties.
"For example, the Metropolitan Statistical Area of Columbia includes Boone County, Cooper County and Howard County,” he said. “(In) Howard and Cooper, Fayette and Boonville (are) relatively large cities, but the rest of the cities outside of those cities are tremendously rural in nature, but they're considered metro counties."
“It's hard to make very definitive statements about all of this stuff because it's so mushy,” he added.
While Missouri ranked 25th nationally for GDP growth in 2023, data for more recent time periods shows it surging ahead. In the third quarter of 2024, Missouri grew at an annual rate of 3.8%, outpacing the national average of 3.1% and ranking 16th.
“That's really being driven by mostly three sectors,” Dietterle said. “Retail trade, health care and professional and technical services made up over half of that growth.”
“We did see some minor reductions in education services and administrative services, but they were largely offset by those gains in those other industries,” he added.
Preliminary data for 2024 is set to be released on March 28.
