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.
Mark, so does that inheritance count as GDP or poverty in this report? I’m willing to bet how they are taxed.
The reason for the high GDP per person and higher poverty rate is because of the very wealthy bankers, lawyers, doctors (especially specialists), money managers, and accountants we have that get 6 or 7 figure salaries, while the rest of the population gets minimum wage. Sometimes with tips.
I would rather be living below the FPL in South Dakota than above it in New York.
Been there, done that.
Quality of life is important.
Improving your quality of life is the whole point of working hard.
I was poor for a few years in Vermont, too,
The whole neighborhood was. But we had a back porch we shared with the occupants of the adjacent apartment and it looked out over a back yard about 50′ X 50′ that had 3 trees in it. The neighbor had a brother who lived in New York City and every summer he would bring his family to stay two weeks with them. His annual vacation was spent sitting on that porch watching his kids play in that backyard..
I cannot imagine how much it would cost to have a porch and a backyard (with trees!) in New York City, But even living below the FPL in a poor neighborhood, we had that in Vermont..
And when I was below the FPL in South Dakota I had an even bigger backyard, with a garden, and a garage, on a tree-lined street, with access to parks and playgrounds..I had a nicer place to live when I was living below the FPL in South Dakota than when I was living well above it in upstate New York.
WalletHub reports that red states are in deeper financial distress than blue states as North Dakota and Iowa saw big jumps in unemployment claims in states where Republican governors are among the country’s least popular. Kristi Noem’s popularity hovers at nineteenth just behind Nebraska’s Earth hating governor. Iowa’s Republican governor is one of the most hated in the United States.
South Dakota also saw an increase in bankruptcy filings while the state is 42nd in credit score ranking and 15th in the number of people in financial distress in large part because of high medical and energy costs. Declining farmland prices and falling commodity prices could mean a recession in the economies of Midwest Trump states.
47th best state for teachers, South Dakota is 50th in budgeting for schools and not only hates public education, the state’s dead last in high school financial literacy and 50th in financial education performance and access. Teachers’ wages in red states like South Dakota surf the bottom because Republicans are Balkanizing education amid a fight over ideological purity and in my home state academic freedom is under attack from another reactionary governor. Republican former governor, Kristi Noem is directly responsible for the closing of Presentation College where many of South Dakota’s teachers and nurses were trained.
Ann:
You’ve NEVER been poor because you’ve ALWAYS been white!!