Missouri sees growth in ag, fishing, hunting industries
Jul. 23—Economic pundits are increasingly predicting that the U.S. is headed toward recession — if the economy is not in one already.
Unemployment remains at historic lows, but heightened inflation over the last year has increased the cost of nearly everything for businesses and consumers alike. With the U.S. Federal Reserve hiking interest rates to slow inflation, most experts forecast slower or negative GDP growth this year.
A potential recession could mark the end of a decade-plus of upward GDP growth. In the Great Recession, GDP bottomed out at $18.4 trillion in the second quarter of 2009. Since then, inflation-adjusted GDP has grown by more than 30% overall to $23.9 trillion, even after the COVID-19 pandemic.
While COVID-19 was unquestionably a severe shock, the pandemic only temporarily disrupted the economy's overall growth trajectory. The pandemic sent GDP from nearly $23 trillion in adjusted dollars in the first quarter of 2020 to $20.9 trillion in the second. But the economy proved resilient and bounced back quickly. GDP climbed back above $23 trillion by the first quarter of 2021 and topped $24 trillion in the last quarter of the year before falling slightly at the beginning of 2022.
One factor in the U.S. economy's strong growth in recent years, even in the wake of the pandemic, has been an explosion of activity in the information sector. Powered by a wave of tech and media startups and continued growth among established players like Apple, Amazon and Google, the industry has experienced 50% growth over the last five years and now is responsible for $1.3 trillion of GDP annually.
Other sectors that have performed well are those that offer services to other businesses. These growing fields include management of companies and enterprises (+35.4% real GDP growth), administrative and support and waste management and remediation services (+29.3%), and professional, scientific and technical services (+27.2%).
In light of these industry trends, the states that have seen the largest increases in GDP growth are found mostly in the western United States. Washington (+27.5% real GDP growth), Utah (+25.5%) and California (+22.3%) have large and fast-growing information sectors that have boosted their economy in recent years. Other prospering states like Florida (+17.7%) and Texas (+17%) can credit more of their success to growth in the management industry.
But each state's economy looks different in terms of growth trajectory and key industries. A total of 48 states have experienced GDP growth over the last five years, and the industries leading that growth vary substantially across locations.
In Missouri, its fastest growing industries include agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, with +57.6% industry-specific percentage change in real GDP, amounting to about $2.9 billion.
Since 2020, Missouri has seen skyrocketing requests for hunting licenses, especially in Northwest Missouri.
"I am seeing more people and more family clusters staying together, going on a walk or mushroom hunting," said Parker Rice, Buchanan County Conservation agent, in a previous interview.
Mushroom hunter Kenneth Thomas said he noticed a lot more activity when it came to morel mushroom hunting the past couple of years.
"You had to really be on your game because so many people have been getting into it. If you're not out there at the right time, there's a good chance someone's already eaten your lunch," he said.
The data used in this analysis is from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis's Gross Domestic Product data. To determine the fastest growing industry in every state, researchers at Filterbuy identified the industry with the greatest change in real GDP between Q4 2016 and Q4 2021. All data was inflation-adjusted to Q4 2021 dollars. Only industries with complete data at the state level were considered in this analysis.
News-Press NOW's Andrew Gaug contributed to this report.
Andrew Gaug can be reached at andrew.gaug@newspressnow.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @NPNOWGaug
