Centers of "Excellence"

The Census Bureau is pitching the wonders of the 2007 economic census. To do so, the bureau has a new report listing the industries in each state that had sales ranking first in receipts or receipts per capita. New Mexico probably is too small to lead an industry's sales. Our excellence came in the per capita department. 

Analysis of the report at wsj.com noted that it was implausible, sometimes, to attribute the sales to a state's citizens. Delaware, for example, leads in per capita shoe sales, which probably means that shoes are made in Delaware, rather than meaning that people in Delaware buy a lot of shoes. For another example, New Mexico tied Colorado for fifth place in the number of tortilla manufacturers with ten, but our sales were too small to be reported. California has 38% of the nation's tortilla manufacturing business and leads in the value of shipments per capita.

During 2002, New Mexico has nine casino "establishments" and total receipts of $678.9 million, good for sixth nationally. (For economic number counting, an establishment is a business location. A firm can operate more than one establishment.) The take was $366 per capita, $103 ahead of Nevada. Nevada ranked behind New Mexico, probably because casino hotels are a separate category. 

New Mexico had 15 establishments doing "non-metallic metal mining and quarrying" in 2002. The sales were $132 million, fourth nationally. I didn't see a per capita rank.

There were 44 establishments providing "all other miscellaneous ambulatory health care services" with total sales of $110 million in 2002. Our rank was 15th. Receipts per capita were $59.

The fourth industry for New Mexico was small, employing 894 in 2002. It was the 30 "other technical and trade schools." Sales were $68.9 million, ranking 19th nationally. Those sales were 1.66% of national receipts, about three times New Mexico proportion of the population, suggesting a happy interest in education. Receipts were $37 per capita.