[pchristensen]

That's because it's so much more populous. That link shows that CA is 34th in % of workers employed in manufacturing (similar to TX and MA). CA is tops in many, many absolute measures because it has almost 10M more people than the next state, TX.

[maxerickson]

Is the argument then that it's better to manufacture in Rhode Island than it is Los Angeles?

[nomel]

If you're an individual looking for a manufacturing job, then yes, absolutely.

[pchristensen]

Just that "largest manufacturing state in the USA" isn't a very helpful measure, since the largest state in basically every measure of development. This tweet shows the same problem with absolute numbers giving misleading appearances: https://x.com/xkcd/status/1339348000750104576:

  There are more Trump voters in California than Texas, more Biden voters in Texas than NY, more Trump voters in NY than Ohio, more Biden voters in Ohio than Massachusetts, more Trump voters in Massachusetts than Mississippi, and more Biden voters in Mississippi than Vermont.

[maxerickson]

There's network effects in manufacturing and not so much in presidential voting, size actually does matter. It's one of the things people always rave about with China.

I'm somewhat surprised that the other response to me thinks the market that is ~1/10 the size of the other is obviously a better place to work. I guess cost of living can have a big impact.