Governors and Unemployment

                    The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday is that we must elect fiscally-conservative governors if we want more jobs and lower unemployment in our states.  The data shows that governors can greatly affect the rate of unemployment in their states by the policies they establish.

 The 17 states that elected new Republican governors in November 2010 have experienced a decline in their unemployment rates since January 2011.  The 17 states are:  Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

                    Robert Elliott of the Orlando Political Buzz Examiner wrote:  "Every single one of these 17 states has seen its unemployment rate decline since January 2011.  Three of them have had unemployment drop by more than 2% (Michigan, Florida, and Nevada).  The average drop in the unemployment rate in these states was 1.35%.  For a comparison, in January 2011 the U.S. national unemployment rate stood at 9.1%.  It is currently 8.2%, meaning that the national unemployment rate has declined by just 0.9% since then.  Based on these percentages, it can be said that the job market in states with new Republican governors is improving a full 50% faster than the job market nationally."

                    The eight states that elected new Democratic governors in 2010 have not fared so well.  These eight states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Vermont. 

                    Elliott wrote:  "The average drop in the unemployment rate in these states was 0.95%, approximately the same as the drop seen nationally. It's interesting to note than one of these states (New York) has actually experienced an increase in its unemployment rate since January 2011.

                    "Based on this data, it appears that the policies being implemented at the state level by newly elected Republican governors are having a positive impact in terms of job creation."