According to a recent Virginia Public Media report, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and General Assembly Democrats painted divergent pictures of the future health of Virginia’s economy and finances at dueling presentations last month.
While the VPM report presented two opposing political perspectives, and made some references to a state-level economic forecast prepared by the University of Virginia, the report did not reference the state-level Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for the latest two quarters, as prepared by the U.S Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Rather than opinions and projections, the BEA analysis provides evidence-based insight into the current economic health of the commonwealth (and the nation).
The BEA’s maps are reproduced here, using BEA’s own data, with the colors adjusted to more clearly show economic decline (in red) and economic growth (in blue):
The latest BEA report indicates a drastic turnaround in the economic situation in the United States between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, based on seasonally adjusted data and accounting for inflation (BEA Table 1). During the last quarter of 2024, real GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the United States. In Q4 2024, the Virginia economy grew at a rate of 3.4 percent per year. Virginia’s economic growth exceeded the national average.
According to the BEA report, real gross domestic product declined by one-half of a percent in the United States during the first three months of 2025. At the state level, real gross domestic product decreased in 39 states in the first quarter of 2025, with the percent change ranging from 1.7 percent at an annual rate in South Carolina to –6.1 percent in Iowa and Nebraska. In Q1 2025, the size of the Virginia economy decreased in real terms at a rate of 0.5 percent per year.
