Simon Says: Kudos to McDuffie and Edgefield

The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released Gross Domestic Product data for the counties of the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) for 2023. Gross domestic product (GDP) measures the value of all final goods and services produced in the county in 2023. It is adjusted for inflation.

The fastest-growing county in the MSA was McDuffie County at 6.3%, the sixteenth fastest-growing county in Georgia. Edgefield County grew at 6%, the sixth fastest in South Carolina. Burke County’s GDP fell by 2.9 percent in 2023. Overall, the MSA’s real (inflation-adjusted) GDP was $29.4 billion in 2023, a 1.7% increase from 2022.

Although McDuffie and Edgefield County grew quickly, they jointly make up less than 5 percent of the MSA’s GDP. 45 percent of the MSA’s goods and services are produced in Richmond County and 25 percent in Aiken.

The major driver of MSA GDP growth in 2023 was retail, contributing 0.6 percentage points to the overall 1.7% growth. Other sectors that contributed positively were agriculture, real estate and rental and leasing, healthcare and social assistance, and government. Net drags on growth were construction and manufacturing.

McDuffie County’s growth was driven by agriculture, durable goods manufacturing, and transportation and warehousing, all contributing about 2.2 percentage points to the overall 6.3 percent growth. In Edgefield County, agriculture grew faster than the overall economy at 7.6 percent.

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