I was wondering what the U.S. equivalent of Germany would be, since Germany is only a part of the Euro zone. Are there states that carry the country in much the same way Germany carries the Euro zone?

So after digging around in some numbers here is America’s Germany. A note on the numbers, there is some discrepancy in year reporting, most numbers are 2010, but some are 2011, still since economies have been treading water for the last year I don’t think the difference would be dramatic. Numbers have been compiled from the BEA, Wikipedia, and the CIA world factbook. Data ranged column 2-4 are weighted averages for the states based on % of total GDP for the three, #5 is weighted on population for the total of the three.

2010	GDP $Bil	%change	%unemployment	GDP per	% Persons below	population
				capita	poverty rate	millions
Germany	3,316	3.50	10.99	35,700.00	15.50	81
The Three   combined	3,174	3.27	8.85	48,584.37	14.20	62
New York	1,114	5.10	8.00	57,423.00	14.50	19
Texas	1,306	2.80	8.50	45,940.00	16.20	25
Florida	754	1.40	10.70	40,106.00	11.10	18

Now I imagine the first thing that would be brought up here is that Germany is still better off because they have a strong manufacturing base and strong exports. While I am not going the argue the value of that it must also be kept in mind that all European countries have much higher levels of trade in their economies, the U.S. economy has much more of its GDP attributed to domestic ativity. In “03-”05 the U.S. had a 24% trade to GDP ratio, while France was 51%, Spain 55% and Germany 71%. (Numbers care of SeekingAlpha). As far as the manufacturing issue is concerned I think it should be remembered that the U.S. makes money overseas doing things like selling insurance, or making loans. I can accept that trading in things like derivatives is unfortunate, but the point holds that some things a country can ”sell” have equal value in basic economic terms as durable goods.