How Did Nevada Stayed Afloat in the Recession? Gold

During the recent economic troubles, Nevada was one of the hardest hit states as the property and tourism markets both crumbled. The troubles have just kept on coming, including unemployment hitting 13% in January, but Nevada has an unusual economy that is harder to understand than many others.

Few people know that Nevada is actually the top gold producing state in the country, responsible for 82% of the US output, and if ranked as its own nation it would be 4th in the world.

Because of this massive gold economy, Nevada was able to take a more defensive position than most states with their exports during the recession and also Nevada has been able to recover more quickly than other states because they are able to export to the rapidly growing economies worldwide.

Nevada’s exports totaled $5.67 billion in 2009 which was a bit of a fall of from 2008 and 2007 when the numbers were $6.11 billion and $5.71 billion respectively.

When looking at a breakdown of Nevada’s 2009 exports precious stones and metals accounted for $3 billion; next largest was ores at $509 million; electrical machinery, $479 million; entertainment equipment such as toys, games and sporting goods, $427 million; computing equipment, $337 million; photo and medical equipment, $262 million; and aerospace materials, $103 million.

The largest worldwide trading partner for Nevada in 2009 was Switzerland, mostly because of the gold trade, and they totaled $2.8 billion in exports.

In a state that is famous for encouraging visitors to take risks, it is ironic that they survived the recession be hedging their economy on the local gold trade. This really serves to highlight how some of the places that seemingly were the hardest hit by the recession also had some of the brightest opportunities, and it shows that there are always new ways to make money if only you look for them.