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The ‘Miracle’ That Turned California Into The World’s Fifth-largest Economy
California has long held a special place in the imagination of Americans and people all over the world.
It is, after all, the land of Hollywood, where dreams come true. And it is home to Silicon Valley, the world capital of technological innovation.
Add to this the fact that the American region is also, according to data revealed this week by the World Bank, the epicenter of an “economic miracle”.
If it were a country, California would be the fifth economy in the world. This is particularly surprising for a state that not long ago was facing bankruptcy.
Economic success
Today, California is on another level. Its economy grew by 3.4 percent in 2019, surpassing India and behind Germany, and it went from eighth to the fifth largest economy in the world.
The GDP of the state, the most populous in the US, reached $3.133 trillion in 2019. If California were a sovereign nation, it would rank as the fifth-largest economy, ahead of India and behind Germany.
The region has also become a job-creation machine. It has created more jobs than Texas and Florida combined, states that are the second and third most populous in the United States, respectively.
In addition, it is home to four of the ten largest companies in the world, including Apple and Google.
A political lesson?
But beyond the civic pride that makes California’s 39 million residents, many are looking to draw political lessons from the state’s growth-and that could be applied to the rest of the country.
The area was facing a fiscal crisis when, in 2010, Democrat Jerry Brown’s governor spearheaded the process of economic recovery.
His actions were as controversial as they were effective: in 2012, when the state’s fiscal deficit reached $15 billion, the governor decided to raise taxes for the wealthiest.
