Jeffery Adkins News

In 2012, U.S. The U.S. ocean economy outpaced the domestic economy between 2011 and 2012, with an increase of $22 billion in gross domestic product, from $321 billion to $343 billion, according to a new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) analysis. Adjusting the figures to remove the effects of inflation, this increase equates to a 10.5 percent rate of growth—more than four times as fast as the U.S. economy as a whole. The report is based on 2012 U.S. national economic statistics released in August 2014.

In 2011, the U.S. ocean and Great Lakes economy produced $282 billion in goods and services and employed 2.2 percent of the nation’s workers—that’s more than twice the percentage of workers in the U.S. agriculture industry. This fact and many others are featured in a 2011 data summary from Economics: National Ocean Watch (ENOW), a product of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center. County-level facts, charts and maps highlighting the 2011 data findings are found on the “Ocean Jobs” and “Wetland Benefits” tabs of the Coastal County Snapshots tool.