TPPF statement on Texas jobs report
AUSTIN – Chuck DeVore, Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Talmadge Heflin, Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy, issued this statement today on Texas’ January 2014 Jobs Report:
“In January, an extraordinary 33,900 jobs were added in the Lone Star State, representing 26 percent of all jobs added nationwide,” said Heflin. “Though the share of the national population who are employed has remained painfully low — around 59 percent almost five years into the expansion — this same share is roughly 61 percent in Texas, despite a much larger relative increase in population.”
Heflin continued, “The private sector added 293,900 jobs over the last year, which is an astounding 3.2 percent annual growth rate. To add to this success, the unemployment rate in Texas of 5.7 percent has now been equal to or below the national average for at 85 consecutive months.”
“Today’s jobs report reveals another month of strong job creation in January,” said DeVore. “The Texas model of no income tax, limited government, and fiscal restraint yields good numbers — but the real point is not the statistics, but the lives of hope, opportunity, and aspiration that are possible, and fulfilled, in the Lone Star State.”
Chuck DeVore is Vice President of Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Honorable Talmadge Heflin is Director of the Center for Fiscal Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin.
Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com
Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation
Twitter feed: www.Twitter.com/TPPF
-30-
