Best States for Jobs

[Ban my account ffs!]

I've been reading through the employment data for various states, and I was surprised that the picture across the country is like a tale of two cities.  While a few states have gained back all or nearly all of the jobs lost in the recession, most have not even come close.  Furthermore, the only reason unemployment rates have fallen or held steady in most states is a dramatic contraction in the labor force.

A few states are doing comparatively well though, seeing their labor forces grow and employment grow even faster to allow the unemployment rate to fall.

Of course I have to mention Minnesota.  The state has gained back nearly every job lost during the recession.  And unlike other states, the labor force continues to grow.  The unemployment rate fell from a high of 8.5% in mid 2009 to 6.6% in May, the last month official statistics are available.

The leading sectors for employment growth since the worst of the recession have been mining and logging, manufacturing, professional and business services, and education and healthcare.

Virginia is also doing a good job creating jobs and keeping up with an expanding labor force.  The story is much the same in Virginia as it is in Minnesota.

Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas are honorable mentions.  Those states are seeing rapidly growing labor forces and good job creation... but the fast population growth has meant that unemployment rates are still high.  And you have to keep in mind that nearly 1 in 10 workers in Texas earn equal to or less than the minimum wage... the highest of any state.

The worst performers were obvious:  Michigan, California, Rhode Island... but the dramatic decline in labor force numbers and lack of job creation permeated much of the nation with only a few islands of meaningful job creation.

I thought Washington, for example, would have relatively good numbers... but their employment numbers are bad and getting worse.  The labor force there continues to contract and their unemployment rate is not shrinking even while it remains high.

[Sbane]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

[All Along The Watchtower]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

California, unfortunately, has a huge gap between rich and poor. For all the accusations of California being a "Leftist" state by the right, it actually has a profoundly non-egalitarian distribution of wealth, with an overall very regressive tax system and high cost of living that helps foster that. The coastal regions (especially the SF Peninsula, Silicon Valley, Marin County, and Oakland Hills in the Bay Area, and Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu,  South Orange County, and other wealthy areas/enclaves down in Southern CA) are upper-middle to upper-class, while the interior of the Central Valley and other more rural parts of the state are lower-middle class to poor, with high unemployment and foreclosure rates.

The Central Valley and the Inland Empire were some of the hardest-hit areas by the housing crash. My area, Silicon Valley, has high demand and low supply for housing-so the housing market remains strong here. 

[phk]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

This basically.

An infrastructure push is a temporary stopgap solution for them. Even after you deport the illegals (though most have already left).

[phk]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

California, unfortunately, has a huge gap between rich and poor. For all the accusations of California being a "Leftist" state by the right, it actually has a profoundly non-egalitarian distribution of wealth, with an overall very regressive tax system and high cost of living that helps foster that. The coastal regions (especially the SF Peninsula, Silicon Valley, Marin County, and Oakland Hills in the Bay Area, and Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu,  South Orange County, and other wealthy areas/enclaves down in Southern CA) are upper-middle to upper-class, while the interior of the Central Valley and other more rural parts of the state are lower-middle class to poor, with high unemployment and foreclosure rates.

The Central Valley and the Inland Empire were some of the hardest-hit areas by the housing crash. My area, Silicon Valley, has high demand and low supply for housing-so the housing market remains strong here.  

Of course. Despite California's left-wing reputation and near D control of everything, it's possibly one of the worst states to be poor in. We were one of the worst states for income growth for the bottom 10% from 1981 to 2004.

Of course what's being ignored is that in those white-bred Midwestern states the lower classes have more culture-specific human capital as opposed to say the Oaxacan bricklayer that is common in the Central Valley.

[Ban my account ffs!]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

California, unfortunately, has a huge gap between rich and poor. For all the accusations of California being a "Leftist" state by the right, it actually has a profoundly non-egalitarian distribution of wealth, with an overall very regressive tax system and high cost of living that helps foster that. The coastal regions (especially the SF Peninsula, Silicon Valley, Marin County, and Oakland Hills in the Bay Area, and Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu,  South Orange County, and other wealthy areas/enclaves down in Southern CA) are upper-middle to upper-class, while the interior of the Central Valley and other more rural parts of the state are lower-middle class to poor, with high unemployment and foreclosure rates.

The Central Valley and the Inland Empire were some of the hardest-hit areas by the housing crash. My area, Silicon Valley, has high demand and low supply for housing-so the housing market remains strong here. 

Of course. Despite California's left-wing reputation and near D control of everything, it's possibly one of the worst states to be poor in. We were one of the worst states for income growth for the bottom 10% from 1981 to 2004.

Of course what's being ignored is that in those white-bred Midwestern states the lower classes have more culture-specific human capital as opposed to say the Oaxacan bricklayer that is common in the Central Valley.

Which is why Texas is one of the top job creators in the country.  No Mexican brick layers there!

Nor does it explain why proximal states like Wisconsin, Illinois, or Michigan are doing much worse.

My point was not a demographics thing, but that job growth in the U.S. has been concentrated in a few places that are seemingly completely unrelated... Virginia, Texas, Minnesota... why those states?  Why, despite the lowish unemployment rate, is the labor force shrinking in Oklahoma... but growing in North Dakota?

[phk]

California has basically no way to give all those construction workers jobs. Even a massive infrastructure push in California alone wouldn't be enough. Probably not enough projects in the state. Most of the jobs being created in California are high skill and not a lot of them are being created. The bay area has an unemployment rate close to the national average iirc. And probably below if you exclude the east bay, where the housing boom in the bay area happened.

California, unfortunately, has a huge gap between rich and poor. For all the accusations of California being a "Leftist" state by the right, it actually has a profoundly non-egalitarian distribution of wealth, with an overall very regressive tax system and high cost of living that helps foster that. The coastal regions (especially the SF Peninsula, Silicon Valley, Marin County, and Oakland Hills in the Bay Area, and Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu,  South Orange County, and other wealthy areas/enclaves down in Southern CA) are upper-middle to upper-class, while the interior of the Central Valley and other more rural parts of the state are lower-middle class to poor, with high unemployment and foreclosure rates.

The Central Valley and the Inland Empire were some of the hardest-hit areas by the housing crash. My area, Silicon Valley, has high demand and low supply for housing-so the housing market remains strong here. 

Of course. Despite California's left-wing reputation and near D control of everything, it's possibly one of the worst states to be poor in. We were one of the worst states for income growth for the bottom 10% from 1981 to 2004.

Of course what's being ignored is that in those white-bred Midwestern states the lower classes have more culture-specific human capital as opposed to say the Oaxacan bricklayer that is common in the Central Valley.

Which is why Texas is one of the top job creators in the country.  No Mexican brick layers there!

1.) Not all Mexicans are created the same. Texas has a higher proportion of it's Mexican population from more wealthy northern states. The hardest hit parts of California have their Mexicans from poorer more southern states, they are more likely to be sojourners than actual immigrants as well.

2.) Texas is doing better than California because it never went through a 1.) dot-com bubble burst (the bulk of which took place in Xahar's area) and 2.) housing bubble burst. Property taxes being capped at a low rate did encourage a lot of ruinous real estate speculation in California.

3.) Minnesota is whiter than those states no? Whites make more than every ethnicity excluding Asians.

4.) Virginia's growth is in the NoVA-DC metro area. Fed govt post-9/11.

[phk]

http://www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=1590

[phk]

Texas's main advantage is having a low cost of living...

Which leads to Texans have less than half the household debts of Californians, and 28 percent less than the national average, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

[memphis]

Too bad they have no water. They may find that to be a problem.

[Ban my account ffs!]

So it seems Texas is first, Virginia second, and Minnesota third for job prospects in the U.S.  MN has the 3rd highest rate of labor force growth, and as roughly equal to Virginia, behind North Dakota and Texas for actual job growth.

If you take migration out of the picture, MN would have the 3rd lowest unemployment rate in the nation behind Virginia and Texas, at roughly 4.5%... but because people are moving here for jobs, it stands at 6.7%... still well below the national average.

Of course Texas dwarfs the rest with 3 times more migration/labor force growth.. thus their unemployment rate is higher, at 8.2%.

One negative for my state is that wage growth has been lacklustre, at only about 1.1% since the recession began.  The only silver lining is that wages were quite high here to begin with and coupled with the low cost of living, you can still live well here.

So...

1.  Texas, by a long shot (Low regulations, low cost of business, oil)
2.  Virginia  (Federal government, high education levels)
3.  Minnesota  (Still not sure.. mining, manufacturing, business services, high education levels, low cost of doing business despite higher taxes and more regulations).
4.  North Dakota  (Due to oil)

[Ban my account ffs!]

You also have to look at labor force participation:

MN's is the 2nd highest in the nation at 71.9%, behind North Dakota at 72.3%.

But no other state Minnesota's size or larger comes close.  Texas is 65.6% and Alabama takes the cake for the lowest, at 59.2%.

Other larger states with relatively high participation rates are Wisconsin at 68.7% and Virginia (not surprised) at 68.5%.

Virginia has the highest rate of any "southern" state by a long shot.

[Link]

So it seems Texas is first, Virginia second, and Minnesota third for job prospects in the U.S.  MN has the 3rd highest rate of labor force growth, and as roughly equal to Virginia, behind North Dakota and Texas for actual job growth.

If you take migration out of the picture, MN would have the 3rd lowest unemployment rate in the nation behind Virginia and Texas, at roughly 4.5%... but because people are moving here for jobs, it stands at 6.7%... still well below the national average.

Of course Texas dwarfs the rest with 3 times more migration/labor force growth.. thus their unemployment rate is higher, at 8.2%.

One negative for my state is that wage growth has been lacklustre, at only about 1.1% since the recession began.  The only silver lining is that wages were quite high here to begin with and coupled with the low cost of living, you can still live well here.

So...

1.  Texas, by a long shot (Low regulations, low cost of business, oil)
2.  Virginia  (Federal government, high education levels)
3.  Minnesota  (Still not sure.. mining, manufacturing, business services, high education levels, low cost of doing business despite higher taxes and more regulations).
4.  North Dakota  (Due to oil)

As was mentioned before Texas has a low cost of living.  Land is cheap and plentiful.  A lot of Texas did not see the run up in real estate prices that other places saw so it quietly excused itself from a lot of the real estate implosion.  There are definitely some condos and lofts that got dinged but the suburban homes didn't really run up the way they did in Maimi, Vegas, and Cali.

[TeePee4Prez]

Pennsylvania is an odd one for doing well.  Don't really see too many jobs created here.  The big pharmas in the Philly suburbs are looking to layoff even further.  Let's not forget the "eds and meds" cuts were looking at as well due to Corbett's budget cuts.  I wonder if it's a matter of a lot of older workers dying off or retiring rather than job creation lower our UE rate?  I looked closer at the Pittsburgh area and population dropped.  I think the bloated economic numbers in thaty area have more to do with older people dying/moving rather than job growth.