I think it is funny that they want to use Feb 2009 as the start date considering Texas' late entry into the recession due to the lack of a housing bubble-which remind me why did we not have one? Why not track the data and go back to Nov 2007 to include other states? Considering that people want to make arguments for high oil prices for Texas' economy doing well, why can the same info regarding New York be considered? I do recall Wall St getting a vast subsidy to prop up all the finance jobs that existed there to keep that bubble from bursting. Why not credit the federal reserve for NY's stellar #s?
Probably because David Paterson doesn't have a clan of people running around pretending like he's a job creating mastermind and pretending like 8 % unemployment is impressive?
I wish we had a way to measure, not just job growth/unemployment, but what kinds of jobs we're making, and whether or not they provide living wages. Perry can trot out all these jobs figures he wants, but if you're making minimum wage shoveling dookie with no benefits in half of them, it's not a whole hell of a lot to brag about.
We can. http://www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=1590 Let's look at the data. Here's a link: Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates Texas median hourly wage is $15.14... almost exactly in the middle of the pack (28th out of 51 regions). Given that they've seen exceptional job growth (and these other states have not) this does not seem exceptionally low. But the implication here is that the new jobs in Texas, the jobs that Texas seems to stand alone in creating at such a remarkable pace, are low paying jobs and don't really count. If this were true, all these new low-paying jobs should be dragging down the wages data, right? But if we look at the wages data since the beginning of the recession (click to enlarge, states are listed alphabetically) And it turns out that the opposite is true. Since the recession started hourly wages in Texas have increased at a 6th fastest pace in the nation. As a side note, the only blue state that has faster growing wages is Hawaii. Just thought I'd get that jab in since so many people have been making snarky "Yeah, I could get a job in Texas is I wanted to flip burgers!" comments at me on Twitter.
And here's a chart of where the job growth is compared to the rest of the U.S. It's interesting to me that the % growth is actually less in oil and gas.
umm, if your hourly wage is $15, and you add in $1, you increase your hourly wage much faster on a percentage basis than a stae where the hourly wage is already $20 that goes to $21.... The problem with this piece you keep copy pasting is that it expects us to be impressed by basic arithmetic. You don't have to dig that hard to see that the 8.2% unemployment isn't impressive. And did you know that's what Texas' unemployment is? Yep..it's 8.2%.
Blah... a jump from 6.6% to 8.2% IS substantial... that is is nearly a 25% increase in the unemployment rate... that also does not include the huge number of people in Texas making minimum wage, or the undocumented workers... 780,000 new residents... Texas has for a long time been getting more new residents than residents leaving... because it is an attractive place to live. Don't see how anyone can say he did a GOOD job with job creation... perhaps you can argue that it is hard to say, or that he wasn't a disaster...
what power does the president of the US have to affect the national economy? the answer might surprise you...
How about kicking butt and taking names? GDP is up, Stocks Market is up, Unemployment is coming down, we're getting better health care, Obama has done a pretty decent job no?
Lot's of cool graphs. Here's one from the Christian Science Monitor, that bastion of liberal news. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/O...-the-government-are-chummier-than-you-d-think
When I said the jobs were most probably attributable to the new wealth created by the shale gas boom that doesn't mean only jobs in the energy sector. For every 1000 people finding relatively high paying jobs there will be a corresponding increase in the jobs that service those people: burger flippers, motel maids, grocery baggers etc etc. The point is the wealth creation, new money just flowing out of the ground; and an increase in the taxable value of land too.
Lloyd Doggett says Texas has worse unemployment than 25 states and it's tied with Mississippi for most minimum-wage workers U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett told ABC News on Aug. 11, 2011, that Gov. Rick Perry’s rosy depictions of employment conditions in Texas aren’t entirely accurate. "Twenty-five states have lower unemployment than Texas does today," the Austin Democrat said, adding that "we're tied with Mississippi for more minimum-wage jobs than anywhere in the United States." Is Texas middling in unemployment and tied with the Magnolia State for minimum-wage jobs? Yes and yup. According to the latest monthly state-by-state unemployment rates, posted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas’ seasonally adjusted June unemployment rate of 8.2 percent placed it 26th among the 50 states. North Dakota had the lowest rate, 3.2 percent. The most populous states faring better than Texas were Pennsylvania, ranked 18th (7.6 percent), and New York, which was 23rd (8 percent). Regarding minimum-wage workers, the Austin American-Statesman said in a July 17 news article that Texas and Mississippi led the nation last year with 9.5 percent of hourly workers earning at or less than the federal minimum hourly wage of $7.25. Hourly workers aren’t the entire labor force, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics defines as adults who are working plus those lately looking and available for work. The Statesman story says that according to the bureau, 550,000 Texans earned no more than the minimum wage in 2010, and the number of Texas workers earning the federal minimum wage or less was greater than the totals for California, Florida and Illinois combined. In the story, Lori Taylor, an associate professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, attributes the state’s lower wages to its having a younger, less educated workforce and a lower cost of living. In March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in an online post that nearly 5.8 million Texas workers were paid hourly rates in 2010, representing 55.7 percent of the state’s workers, a proportion that compares with 58.8 percent nationally. A bureau economist, Steven Haugen, told us in an interview that most other workers are salaried, though some work on commission or do piece work; the bureau doesn’t collect data on those workers’ pay rates, he said. A table in the bureau’s post lists each state and its percentage of hourly workers paid at or below minimum wage (people who work for tips and worker younger than 20 are among those who can be paid less than minimum wage). Texas and Mississippi each had 9.5 percent of hourly workers paid at or less than minimum wage, tying for first among the states. Under Texas law, employers must pay workers the federal minimum wage. Alabama and West Virginia, at 9.3 percent, were next highest, followed by Louisiana (8.9 percent), Oklahoma (8.6 percent), Georgia (8.5 percent), Tennessee (8.3 percent), Kentucky (8.1 percent) and Missouri (8 percent). Washington, which has a state minimum wage rate higher than the federal rate, had the lowest share of hourly workers paid at or below minimum wage, 1.1 percent. In sheer numbers, Texas had 268,000 hourly workers earning minimum wage and 282,000 paid below the minimum wage, the bureau says, the most of any state by a wide margin. Almost 13 percent of the nation’s hourly workers paid at or below the minimum wage were in Texas, the second most-populous state with more than 25 million residents, or about 8 percent of the nation’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Mississippi, with almost 3 million residents, had 34,000 and 29,000 hourly workers, respectively, earning the minimum wage or less. We rate Doggett’s statement True. http://www.politifact.com/texas/sta...doggett-says-texas-has-worse-unemployment-25/
Question: when talking about people paid below minimum wage, would that include servers & bartenders?
if 739k came to this state, and we jumped 2 percent in unemployment wouldn't that show we're either staying the same or improving? we added many more people, not sure what the pop of texas is, but almost a mil has to be a noticeable person, looked it up it's roughly 25 mil, so 4 person for a mil added, that's pretty decent right? if we had risen like 5 percent i think it would make a the point we are not adding enough jobs, which we aren't regardless because we have an unemployment rate, any unemployment rate is showing we're not creating enough jobs. however, we are adding enough to not take a giant spike in unemployment despite the influx nearly a million immigrants.
texas added about 115K gov't jobs and actually lost 40K private sector jobs since the recession began link so are you guys now down for government hiring? /thread
This is total nonsense. What legislation has Perry introduced or had a hand in that created jobs? Nothing comes to mind. How has he overtly hindered job creation. Nothing comes to mind. I guess he's done a good job of getting out of the way and letting the numbers 'happen'. He did turn down a Federal Handout that could've been used for State infrastructure and roadway projects. You always take the money, IMO. If not the government will surely pi$$ it away on something else. Is it just me or does he look like he's had some nick and tuck done?
