South Carolina’s economy limped through 2013, despite its increasing job base, according to a report Wednesday from the federal government.
The state’s gross domestic product — the sum of the total production output of all its industries in a given year — grew at a mere 1.2 percent last year, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
That output, released Wednesday in an annual report, put the state in 35th place among other states for economic growth. However, South Carolina’s $184 billion economy last year was up from $178 billion in 2012.
The unrevised 2013 numbers were unimpressive enough to raise the suspicions of at least one economist who studies economic conditions across the Palmetto State year round.
South Carolina’s 2012 gross domestic product was revised upward by Commerce’s Board of Economic Analysis to a 1.5 percent growth rate in the report released Wednesday, down significantly still from the 3.1 percent annual output reported in 2011.
“I can’t help but question the numbers, even though I understand who it is that is putting the numbers out,” said Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo senior economist in Charlotte.
Job creation in South Carolina has been on a tear the past year, Vitner noted. The unemployment rate fell in April to 5.3 percent, its lowest level in 13 years, and many of the new jobs created have been in the state’s better manufacturing sectors, including automotive, aerospace and tire production.
South Carolina also improved production output nearly across the board, Vitner said, showing positive gains in all but four of the 21 contributing sectors Commerce uses to measure gross domestic product.