State real GDP growth rates in 2023:3 ranged from Kansas’s 9.7% to Arkansas’s 0.7% (the latter in Q3 being Wasn’t rather than Ar Kansas). As Kansas would suggest, states with relatively high concentrations in agriculture tended to rank high, but there was also strong growth in the Rocky Mountains as well as Florida.
The distribution of personal income growth was comparable to real GDP; Arkansas was also at the bottom, while Kansas was 3rd (Texas was number 1, which is something often heard there for many other things). As is often the case, aggregate personal income growth can be heavily affected by seemingly random movements in transfer payments. In general, transfer payments fell in Q3. In New York, though, an anomalous 4.4% rate of growth in transfers pushed the state’s aggregate income growth about the national pace, despite a rather soft gain in net earnings.