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58% of military in CA-22 (Valadao)

223% of water transport (Staten Island ferries! largest private industry in district) in NY-11 (Malliotakis)

100% of pipeline transport in TX-15 (De La Cruz)

equitablegrowth.org/medicaid-and... h/t @robertmanduca.bsky.social @equitablegrowth.bsky.social

A lot of the discussion of the reconciliation bill has focused--rightly--on the consequences for beneficiaries of these programs. 11 million people are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage, and 4.5 million stand to lose SNAP. That's a ton. But the economic impacts may be even more widespread

In Kentucky's 5th congressional district, recently profiled by Arlie Hochschild for @nytimes.com, Medicaid makes up a quarter of the entire economic base. The SNAP and Medicaid cuts would be like losing one-third of all traded private sector industries

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/o...

If we look just at the proposed *cuts* to Medicaid and SNAP, it's the economic equivalent of Maine losing its entire forestry and paper manufacturing industries, all at once--or Alaska losing 60% of its oil and gas industry.

Put another way, Medicaid contributes roughly as much to Detroit's economy than car manufacturing, more to Houston than the chemical industry, almost twice as much to Los Angeles as motion picture production--these are big numbers!

As I describe in a post for @equitablegrowth.bsky.social, these programs are major foundations for local economies nationwide. Medicaid alone makes up about 11% of the economic base of US regions, and SNAP is about 1.4% equitablegrowth.org/medicaid-and...

Shifting from economic geography to policy, what does this mean for the current reconciliation bill? The House version is set to cut Medicaid and SNAP by about $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years--that's roughly a 12% cut to Medicaid and 27% to SNAP www.cbo.gov/publication/...

What's driving the change? @innovateeconomy.bsky.social reported last fall about the "Great Transfer-mation" across the US, attributing it to 1) aging populations, 2) rising healthcare costs, and 3) slower earnings growth eig.org/great-transf...

In some parts of Florida--looking at you, Cape Coral--traditional traded industries make up just *5 percent* of the economic base. The rest of the economy is based on retirement savings, pensions, Social Security, Medicare, etc.

Financial income made up another 26%. Traded sector earnings were just 24%: less than either of the other sources, and down from 35% in 2001

I compute the share of *all* economic base income that comes from transfers, financial income, and earnings in traded industries (the standard definition). The results are pretty striking: in 2022, transfer payments accounted for *40 percent* of the economic base across US regions

Usually, researchers define the economic base = traded industries only. But selling products to other cities or countries isn't the only way money can enter a local economy. I explore two other sources: financial income and government transfers. Like exports, these payments sustain the local sector

The two sectors play different roles in the local economy: most residents are employed by the local sector, which typically accounts for about 2/3 of jobs. But the traded sector is the ultimate foundation of a region's economic viability--its economic base

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Other industries--some examples are restaurants, grocery stores, home construction, mechanics--serve local, not national/global demand. These are the "town fillers," now usually called the "local" or "non-basic" sector

Basically, some industries--think manufacturing, farming, etc., but also film production or high finance--sell their products on national or global markets, bringing money into their local economies. They're the "town builders", which modern scholars call "traded industries" or the "basic sector"

The starting point is Economic Base Theory--a classic concept in economics and geography going back at least to Werner Sombart's 1916 classic "Der moderne Kapitalismus", which made the distinction between "town builders" and "town fillers"