The shale oil boom has done remarkable things for North Dakota. It is a shame there are not huge deposits of it in every state in the Union, or that some state governments have slowed its production. The economic improvement from state to state last year, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), was very uneven, yet another sign that the recovery is not national but local. More important than GDP, per capita GDP showed the huge differences in both productivity and the likely inability of poor states to recover much at all over time.

The government remarked in a new report that:

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 49 states and the District of Columbia in 2012 according to new statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) that breakdown GDP by state U.S real GDP by state grew 2.5 percent in 2012 after a 1.6 percent increase in 2011.

The range of difference of GDP recovery by state and regions was remarkable. For example, the North Dakota increase in GDP was 13.4%. That did not lift its region — the Plains States — by enough to offset stronger growth in other regions. Overall improvement in the Plains states was only 2.7%. That was bested by a large margin in the Southwest, where GDP grew 4.1% year over year in 2012. A 4.8% improvement in Texas, with its massive economy, was responsible for most of that.

New England’s economy has not improved to any extent, based on the government’s numbers. GDP there was up only 1.2%. The aging of many of the industries there cannot have helped. The damage done to the financial industry probably contributed to the only state drop in GDP last year — Connecticut’s fell by .1%

At the per capita level, the range among states shows why wealth distribution is a problem that cannot be overcome, probably at all. The report showed:

Per capita real GDP ranged from a high of $61,183 in Delaware to a low of $28,944 in Mississippi. Per capita real GDP for the U.S. was $42,784

Mississippi has been and will remain a state plagued by poverty, poor educational attainment and the unusually bad health of many of its residents.

The fact that a single state could have an GDP per capital that is only two-thirds of the national average is staggering, and a sign that there has been a “recession” in states such as Mississippi that has gone on for decades — as far as its residents are concerned.

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