Better late than never, the January jobs report numbers are now available online and are boasting good news for the Commonwealth.
The state job numbers will play a major role in the 2014 campaign and so this is an ongoing PoliticsPA feature.
The good news:
The unemployment rate dropped to 6.4%, the lowest rate since November 2008, two years before Governor Corbett even won office.
Independently, this number is positive sign for the state’s recovery, but Pennsylvania also slipped below the national unemployment rate of 6.7%. That’s right, we are at above average in terms of employment.
And the Republicans are laying responsibility for this good news at the feet of Governor Tom Corbett.
“Under the leadership of Governor Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate continues to drop, and today, it is at its lowest level since November of 2008,” Corbett-Cawley Campaign Manager Mike Barley. “Well below the national unemployment rate, Governor Corbett’s ‘More Jobs, Less Taxes’ agenda is growing our economy and putting Pennsylvanians back to work.”
“[This] jobs announcement serves as further proof that Governor Tom Corbett is putting Pennsylvanians back to work,” PA GOP Chairman Rob Gleason said. “While the national unemployment rate climbed higher, Governor Corbett’s commonsense economic policies helped Pennsylvanian’s unemployment rate drop to its lowest point since November 2008.”
The bad news
Despite a lower unemployment rate, and performing better than the national average, Pennsylvania still ranks horribly in a 12 month moving average of job growth.
In October and November, Pennsylvania was 46th in job creation (when using a 12 month moving average). In December, the Commonwealth fell to 47th.
Now, the Keystone State ranks 48th.
“Under Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s economy has stagnated. We are 48th in job growth and Tom Corbett’s failed policies are holding us back from real progress,” PA Dems spokeswoman Beth Melena said. “With this unimpressive record, Corbett continues to make misleading claims about the Commonwealth’s economy because he simply doesn’t have significant job growth accomplishments to tout.”
But hey, we beat West Virginia and Arkansas.
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3 Responses
You have to be pretty delusional to believe reps are fixing anything at all. How about you cut unemployment benefits to say 2 weeks only. Then the unemployment rate would be less then 1% derrr. Keep making cuts gerrymandering and falsifying statistical numbers can’t wait to see how a majority of America retaliates someday. Statisticly speaking of course the common trend seems to be civil action towards regimes across the globe. I think its only a matter of when in the next few years people get sick of this mafia we have that callls them self the government
Careful David, Dr. Melena and the PA DEMS are gonna call you a misleader.
There are a lot of variables for job creation and employment. One — albeit not the only — explanatory fact is that states that lost more jobs will appear to create them more quickly through the recovery. States with labor law more favorable to employers and a lower cost of doing business will also create jobs more quickly. Many good things are happening in PA; the business climate is getting better. High quality, well-paying jobs are being created. For full and regularly updated data and analysis see: http://www.paworkstats.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/home/19890