North Dakota - Economy

Economy

See also: List of North Dakota companies

Agriculture is the largest industry in North Dakota, although petroleum and food processing are also major industries. The economy of North Dakota had a gross domestic product of $24 billion in 2005. The per capita income in 2006 was $33,034, ranked 29th in the nation. The three-year median household income from 2002–2004 was $39,594, ranking 37th in the U.S. North Dakota is also the only state with a state owned bank, the Bank of North Dakota in Bismarck, and a state owned flour mill, the North Dakota Mill and Elevator in Grand Forks.

As of September 2010, the state's unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation at 3.7% and it has not touched 5 percent since 1987. At end of 2010, the state per capita income was ranked 17th in the nation, the biggest increase of any state in a decade from rank 38th. The reduction in the unemployment rate and growth in per capita income is attributable to the oil boom in the state.

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Famous quotes containing the word economy:

    “I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
    —Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    “Wise men read very sharply all your private history in your look and gait and behavior. The whole economy of nature is bent on expression. The tell-tale body is all tongues. Men are like Geneva watches with crystal faces which expose the whole movement.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)