Visualizing the South is designed to build shared understanding of the region.
By mapping outcomes, highlighting patterns, and creating interactive dashboards, Visualizing the South presents the region as more than a collection of deficits and a place of community, local strength, and real opportunity for progress.
This month’s Visualizing the South explores how industries shape state and regional economies across the United States. Use the dashboard to compare states, explore regional differences, and see how industries contribute different shares of total jobs depending on where you live.
While many industries exist across every region, their role in the economy can look very different from state to state. Looking at regional averages alone can hide these differences. The South may appear close to the national average, but the states within the region vary widely. Some states rely more heavily on manufacturing and production industries, while others have economies centered around government, healthcare, tourism, or professional services. For instance, manufacturing is a far larger share of jobs in some states than in others. In the South, manufacturing jobs are as low as 1.4% of jobs in Washington, D.C., and higher than 14% in Kentucky and Alabama.
The industries that make up a state’s economy can affect wages, workforce opportunities, economic stability, and how communities experience economic change over time. These visualizations, which compare industries across states and regions, help illustrate that regional economies are not one-size-fits-all. Rather, they are shaped by geography, infrastructure, population, history, and investment that come together to determine how local economies grow and change.
