(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
The Business Journals has some rather startling numbers on the past decade in private sector job growth.
Yes it has been an unusual decade with lots of private sector job destruction, and you could come up with a few other caveats, but this is looking like the 1970s all over again: the rest of the country is in the tank while Texas booms. This didn’t end well for Texas in the 1980s, when an oil bust led to an S&L/Real Estate collapse that spun Texas into a deep recession while most of the rest of the country recovered.
That said, that’s a mighty impressive chart for Texas residents, depressing for the rest of us.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
Nevada would be doing better if we weren’t run by some economically incompetent Democrats and Republicans. We had a record setting tax increase in 2003 that ballooned because of a housing bubble then another record tax increase in 2009 in order to sustain that housing bubble era spending. Democrats now want ANOTHER tax increase to keep the bubble going – finally enough Republicans have wised up and started wondering “when enough is enough?” but it still looks like we’ll get a tax increase of some kind.
One of the taxes the Democrats passed was a payroll tax in 2003. They then doubled it in 2009 and wondered why unemployment hit 15 percent at its peak….
[…] Texas and the Lesser 49 « Jay P. Greene’s Blog […]
Michigan! Number! Two!
Just to put things in perspective, in 2010 California had a population of 37,253,956 and Michigan had a population of 9,883,640. So our population loss was, on a percentage basis, about four times as large.
So, the state with the largest percentage loss of population also has the lousiest municipal school district.
Maybe it’s something in the water.
Michigan is in really bad shape.
Even the second place finisher, Arizona, has a pathetically small increase in private sector jobs relative to the number of people who have moved into the state over the last 10 years.
Perhaps someone could take a few minutes to recompile the data after factoring in state population. Seeing the job gain/loss per 1000 residents would be even more telling (although Texas would clearly remain an outlier.) I’d do it but hey… Sunday afternoon dinner beckons.
Texas hasn’t signed-on to National Education Standards (CCSS) either – that’s important to note.
[…] Very interesting chart: […]
Ok, on a population basis I just thought I’d check Jon Huntsman’s claim that Utah outperformed Texas and it appears he’s right. Of course, I believe that’s more attributable to Utah’s unique demographics and enterprising culture than its governor. They could have elected a sack of hammers and reaped the same.