Pennsylvania
Economy

As of 2024, Pennsylvania's gross state product (GSP) of $1.0 trillion is the sixth-largest among all U.S. states behind California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois. If Pennsylvania were an independent country, its economy, as of 2023, would rank as the 20th-largest in the world. On a per capita basis, Pennsylvania's 2021 per capita income of $68,957 ranks 21st among the 50 states. As of 2016, there were 5,354,964 people in employment in Pennsylvania with 301,484 total employer establishments. As of January 2024, the state's unemployment rate is 3.4%.

The state has five manufacturing centers: Philadelphia in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, Erie in the northwest, Scranton-Wilkes-Barre in the northeast, and the Lehigh Valley in the east.

Pennsylvania is home to 23 of the nation's 500 largest companies that comprise the Fortune 500, including two that rank in the top 100, Cencora (formerly AmeriSource Bergen) in Conshohocken, which is the nation's 11th-largest company, and Comcast in Philadelphia, which is the 29th-largest. Philadelphia is home to six of the Fortune 500 companies, with more located in suburbs like King of Prussia; it is a leader in the financial and insurance industries. Pittsburgh is home to eight Fortune 500 companies, including U.S. Steel, PPG Industries, Heinz, and GE Transportation. Hershey is home to The Hershey Company, one of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers. In eastern Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley has become an epicenter for the growth of the U.S. logistics industry, including warehousing and the intermodal transport of goods.

Like many U.S. states, Walmart is the largest private employer in Pennsylvania. The state's second-largest employer is the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League private research university in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is home to the oldest investor-owned utility company in the U.S., The York Water Company.

As of 2018, Pennsylvania ranks first in the nation in a few economic sectors and niches, including barrels of beer produced annually (3.9 million), farmers' markets (over 6,000), food processing companies (2,300), hardwood lumber production (a billion board feet annually), mushroom farms (68), natural gas production, potato chip manufacturing (24 facilities manufacturing one-fourth of the nation's total), and pretzel manufacturing (80 percent of the nation's total).
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