After bashing Texas earlier this week for its Formula 1 corporate welfare, it’s nice to be able to say something positive again about the Lone Star State.
Michael Barone‘s latest Washington Examiner analysis offers the perfect excuse to tout Texas’ general approach to economic growth. Barone reviews figures on job growth from April 2001 to April 2011:
In those 10 years, Texas gained 732,800 private sector jobs, far ahead of the number two and three states, Arizona (90,200) and Nevada (90,000). The nation overall lost more than 2 million private sector jobs, with the biggest losses coming in California (623,700), Michigan (619,200) and Ohio (460,900).
Texas’s gain was also impressive as a percentage of jobs at the beginning of the period. Texas had job growth of 9%, more than any other state except much smaller North Dakota (19%), Alaska (17%), Wyoming (16%), Montana (12%) and Utah (10%). The biggest losers in percentage terms, by far, were Michigan (16%) and Ohio (10%).
Obviously Michigan and Ohio were hurt by the parlous condition of the Detroit-based auto firms and other manufacturers; North Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming and Montana were helped by local oil, gas and coal booms. Texas and California are both too big to be explained by just local factors.
The lesson of the previous decade seems clear: if you take a previously prosperous and creative state and subject it to high taxes and intrusive regulations, it loses 5% of its private sector jobs; if you take a previously somewhat less prosperous and creative state and govern it with low taxes and light regulation, it gains 9% more jobs, even as the nation’s economy is suffering.
