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Pa. Unemployment Rate Drops

PA-Dept-of-Labor-and-Industry-logoThe Department of Labor and Industry released its January unemployment numbers for the state.  They show a two tenth of a point drop from December’s numbers, putting the rate at 5.2%.  

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is above the national rate of 4.8% for January, a tenth of a percent higher than it was in December.  The national rate fell in February to 4.7%.  Pennsylvania’s rate for February will be released later this month.  

The employment of Pennsylvania residents increased by 4,000 and number of unemployed Pennsylvanians fell by 19,000.  This is the fifth consecutive month where the employment number rose and the unemployment number fell. 

This is good news for the Governor. If the rate continues to fall it will become a major part of his talking points on economic successes during his first term.  

Republicans are framing the argument that Pennsylvania’s rate is higher than the national rate.  

“Pennsylvania’s economy continues to lag behind much of the country. We’re being held back by a bloated bureaucracy, failing schools, and punitive tax policies,” Pa. GOP chairman Val DiGiorgio said in an emailed statement.  

PoliticsPA has reached out to the Governor’s office for comment.

9 Responses

  1. Unemployed for 4 weeks now. Still haven’t received a single dime from benefits. Going to have to take a $30,000 per year paylcut just to get income. This will take me off the unemployment statistic but really won’t help my situation. I will be too busy working overtime to look for another job and go on interviews in my actual profession. I’might sure the economy will suffer without that $30,000 funneling in. I have to wonder if this is why the rates are showing a reduction or if people are actually finding jobs in their profession or just taking any job they can since unemployment compensation no longer exists in PA.

  2. Hahaha….thanks to food stamps, chip, etc nobody has to work…haha…suckers who work well shame on you…haha

  3. Seneca is on the warpath for more tax cuts and de-regulation of gas industry. Hell, PA never taxed gas in the first place. How do you cut that?

  4. What Trump economic recovery? Did Trump take office in 2009 when the recession officially ended? Or did he take office in 2014 when the major economic indicators were accelerating? I must have missed that. Wasn’t there some other guy in the White House during the longest private sector job growth streak on record? If only I could remember past a month ago…

  5. Pennsylvania has never recovered from the killing-off of its rust-belt industries in the 1970s. Most rural areas were never that prosperous, with transient manufacturing and minimum-wage industries providing jobs for those who did not want to go into the military or leave the area for work elsewhere. Since the end of the 1990s things have trended much worse, apart from the brief interlude of the Marcellus Shale mini-boom. That’s mostly gone now, too.

    Republican-dominated local business and industry conspiring to keep most well-paying companies out of the state, especially the rural areas, certainly have to bear a lot of the blame. But more recently the combination of the Obama administration’s so-called “progressivism” combined with the maladroit behavior of successive state governments, the current one included, threaten to ruin this state.

    Perhaps the Trump economic recovery will improve Pennsylvania’s difficult situation. It will take a lot of well-paying new jobs over the next decade to do so. The return of the gas industry should be a likely harbinger of change. However, financially responsible state government supportive of business and industry is a must for any of this to happen.

  6. Screw the GOP chairman. For years his Republican pals have suppressed wages, cut employment in their companies to skeleton crews and then socked it to the people who hired their businesses. Then they have the gall to blame, ” a bloated bureaucracy, punitive taxes and failing schools!”. Funny how they don’t want to run surpluses, fix the pension problem or adequately fund education. It’s because they’re phoney-ram-a hypocrites! Go to NW PA and see the economic recovery after GElocomotive laid off 1,500 last year.If it wasn’t for all of the government jobs in Filthadelphia and Dauphin Counties, well they would be in BIG trouble employment wise.

  7. Yes, all this job improvement is due to the governor. Guv Wolf is a genius at employment. Thank you, guv.

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