What is the Story With Texas Employment?

There has been a lot of talk about the Texas "job making machine", which is supposed to be a guide for the rest of the nation.  Talk is, Texas has created a disproportionate percentage of the new jobs created in this ongoing downturn.

An example of such talk is a recent column by New York Times OpEd writer and Nobel Laureate Dr Paul Krugman.

Now comes Matthias Shapiro and his blog, Political Math, with some discussion of the numbers, based upon what the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tells us about our economy.  Mr Shapiro tells us up front that Governor Rick Perry is not his choice for the next President, but keeping the numbers straight seems to be a passion with Mr Shapiro.

A bonus for those of us in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics list of the labor force from January 2001 to June of 2011 doesn't show much growth.

It started (January 2001) at 3,391,728.
The June 2011 numbers is 3,487,916 (Preliminary).

That is a difference of 96,188.  That doesn't seem like much of a labor force growth over ten years.  The total labor force did jump up to 3,499,946 in December of 2010, but has fallen off since.

Our unemployment rate, per BLS, was 7.6% in June of this year (Preliminary).

My conclusion is that Duke of Wellington was correct about data.  But, it is all we have and we have to use it thoughtfully.

Regarding Texas, I suspect the story is not as good as some would have us believe, but not nearly as bad as others would have us believe.  Truth is often somewhere in the middle and "God is in the details".

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff