By Amy Evans, AICP

The National Association of Counties (NACo) released an analysis this month with the answer: yes and no. Overall, economic output across the nation increased by almost 6% between 2020 and 2021, rebounding from a contraction of nearly 3% from 2019 to 2020.

But just under half of counties nationwide that had decreases in output between 2019 and 2020 still lag behind their pre-pandemic gross domestic product (GDP). Pandemic-driven declines in many of these counties are layered with lingering effects of the 2008-2009 Great Recession.

NACo’s blog post walks through these and other statistics and provides many informational resources for county governments.