“Blue” territories have seen their productivity climb from $118,000 per worker in 2008 to $139,000 in 2018. Republican-district productivity, by contrast, remains stuck at about $110,000.

How is productivity measured? I have wondered about this stat as I have seen it used many times over the years but I can't figure out what and how they are measuring or who is doing the measuring.

Take Weyerhaeuser as an example- they own 26 million acres of land across North America, have 10,000 employees and 7+ billion in revenue. Recently their corporate headquarters moved to Seattle. Is their 7 billion in revenue spread across all the loggers, drivers and mill workers in remote forest locations? Boeing is another example with headquarters in Chicago but as far as I know they don't make any planes in Chicago.

Are these stats pulled from census, irs, labor...? Am I wrong or cynical in thinking these are lazy stats and most of the "productivity" is attributed to the small percentage of employees in the corporate HQs? I can't imagine a fed bean-counter following around logging trucks in remote areas to make sure the productivity is attributed to the correct region.