Regional

The main differences between the national income and product accounts (NIPA's) estimates of personal income and the State estimates of personal income stem from the treatment of the income of U.S. residents who are working abroad and the treatment of the income of foreign residents who are working in the United States. The national total of the state estimates of personal income consists of only the income earned by persons who live within the United States, including foreign residents working in the United States.

Three widely used measures of annual county employment and wages by place of work are the Census Bureau's employment and payroll data in the County Business Patterns (CBP) series, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) employment and wage tabulations from the unemployment insurance (UI) program, and BEA's estimates of total wage and salary disbursements and employment.

Three of the most widely used measures of household income are BEA's measure of personal income, the Census Bureau's measure of money income, and the Internal Revenue Service's measure of adjusted gross income of individuals. More detailed discussions exist concerning Alternative Measures of Household Income PDF and Alternative Measures of County Wages PDF.

All state and Local Area estimates are in current dollars. Our estimates are not adjusted for inflation.

The BEA publishes GDP data for states, counties, and metropolitan areas (https://www.bea.gov/data/economic-accounts/regional).

GDP by state is published by BEA on both a quarterly, and annual basis. We do not estimate or publish monthly GDP by state.

For further information on the GDP-by-state estimates, call the GDP-by-state staff at: (301) 278-9309 or send an email to gdpbystate@bea.gov.

BEA recommends using estimates of real economic growth that are based on chain-type quantity indexes or chained dollars. The method for computing contributions to growth is discussed in the article "A Preview of the 1999 Comprehensive Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts: Statistical Changes," in the October 1999 Survey of Current Business. This formula eliminates problems with the non-additivity of component industries to total product (GDP or GDP by state) when valued in chained dollars.

A quantity index measures the level of quantity produced, assuming the price does not change due to inflation or deflation. An advantage of chain-type quantity indexes is that they can easily be re-based to a new base year because these indexes are not subject to bias depending on the base year selected. To re-base the quantity index series, simply divide every quantity index value in the series by the quantity index value of the desired new base year. This will set the value for the new base year equal to 1.00, and all other indexes in the series will be re-based to the new base year.

The real estate industry includes an imputation for the rental value of owner-occupied housing . The BEA treats homeowners as businesses, which pay rent to themselves. Therefore, homeowners contribute to the real estate industry's GDP even if not employed by the industry. In addition, like businesses, homeowners' property taxes paid to state and local governments are included as part of taxes on production and imports (TOPI) for the real estate industry.