The Secretary of State’s incomplete and extra-jurisdictional economic report does include some items worth our consideration that belie the report’s assertion that “South Dakota’s economy continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience and optimism”.
Consider, for instance, the following two charts. On page 6, the Secretary and her expert economic partners at Dakota Wesleyan University display South Dakota’s region-topping real gross domestic product per capita:
The national GDP per capita in 2025 Q4 was $70,249, so South Dakota cranked out over 13% more wealth per person than the national average. Well done, workers!
Alas, South Dakota isn’t doing as good of a job of spreading that wealth around. On page 40, the SOS and DWU note that South Dakota has more poverty than the national average:
Poverty in South Dakota: 12.0%. Poverty nationwide: 10.0%. The chart shows that poverty has consistently been worse in South Dakota than the rest of America.
More money per person, but more poverty—that doesn’t sound like the result of a resilient, optimistic, or properly functioning economy.
Republicans are mostly inherited money anyways, which they guard with lawyers, guns and more money. You can take it from their cold, dead hands. They just believe they earned it and if you don’t have it your lazy. Sorry Zevon , Heston, and Barks. Its a well worn path of argument certainly not debate.