The Left continues to make claims about unemployment in our state that are not supported by data. 

New employment data from the federal government continue to poke holes in arguments from left-of-center activists about the decline in North Carolina’s labor force participation. That’s the assessment from John Locke Foundation President John Hood.

“These activists argue that North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led General Assembly hurt the state’s economy by allowing federal extended unemployment benefits to expire in July 2013,” Hood said. “To support their argument, they attribute almost all of the recent drop in North Carolina’s official unemployment rate to a decline in the state’s labor force.”

“But data released Monday morning is not consistent with that claim,” Hood added. “Beyond the new official unemployment rate of 6.9 percent for December 2013, down from 8.8 percent in June, broader measures of employment also show signs of improvement during the past year.”

Hood points specifically to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that provide more detailed information than the official unemployment rate. That rate, known as U-3, includes only those unemployed workers who are actively seeking jobs. 

Other measures known as U-4, U-5, and U-6 factor in discouraged workers who have given up the labor search, marginally attached workers who have exited the labor force for other reasons, and underemployed part-time workers who would prefer full-time jobs. The federal government releases rolling annual averages for these measures, updated each quarter.

“The 2013 averages just came out,” Hood explained. “If North Carolina’s exit from extended unemployment benefits had caused a large flight from the labor force, the effect should show up in broader measures. So what do they show? Not much. If you compare the U-5 rates for 2012 and 2013, the share of N.C. workers who were discouraged or otherwise marginally attached declined a bit. So did the share of North Carolina workers who were underemployed. Overall, North Carolina’s U-6 rate averaged 14.7 percent during 2013, down from 16.3 percent in 2012.”

All of us have a right to an opinion about public policy, but it is silly to ignore data that refutes one’s claim.