Red States, Including the ‘Newly-Reds,’ Excel at Job Growth

[Geee]

Pajamas Media:

Now that state employment information for the first half of 2011 is available, one can’t help but notice which states are up, as well as a particularly telling example of one which is down.

Though admittedly the comparison isn’t apples to apples, it’s worth noting that of the 757,000 seasonally adjusted jobs added in the overall economy this year from January through June, the ten states with the highest percentage employment growth were responsible for well over half, or 390,000 of them, even though they only have about 20% of the nation’s population:



What’s more, as the economy by all accounts decelerated in May and June, the ten states above stayed relatively strong. While the country as a whole gained only 43,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in those two months, they added over 90,000. Democrats who accuse Republicans of wanting the economy to tank, please note: If it weren’t for these ten states, we might already be in the midst of another recession instead of possibly heading towards one, as Goldman Sachs and others have recently asserted.

Six of the ten (Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming) have been conservative strongholds for decades. Montana, though its governor and two senators are currently Democrats, has been a red state in all but one presidential election since 1972. The final three highlighted above — Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin — were previously governed by Democrats who were replaced with GOP governors this year. All three are in the early stages of what may be remarkable turnarounds. I call them “the newly-reds.”

Led by Governor John Kasich, Ohio’s January-June seasonally adjusted jobs pickup is the Buckeye State’s best performance since 1994. Not coincidentally, that’s about when then-Governor George Voinovich stopped being even sort of conservative. Regardless of the party in charge, Ohio was governed like a blue state until Kasich came along. Even more impressive, in terms of what has actually occurred (i.e., the not seasonally adjusted figures), the state has added just over 200,000 private-sector jobs in the past five months, the best February-June total since 1999, when the national economy, largely due to Kasich’s previous work on the federal budget as a congressman, was far stronger.