Following up on my recent post on country GDP growth rates and mortality in 2020, we now have the first look at state GDP growth rates for 2020 from the BEA.

As with the national data, I would look to caution against over-interpreting this data. I’m presenting it here to give a picture of how 2020 went for states (including a few months of 2021 for morality data). One thing you will notice is that there appears to be little correlation with the raw data between GDP declines and mortality. Lots of important factors (policy, behavior, demographics, weather, luck) aren’t controlled for here. Still, I think it’s useful to see all the data in one picture, given how much many of us have been following the daily, weekly, and monthly releases.

Here is the data. Below I’ll explain more how I created this chart, especially the excess mortality data.

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