Emails, Tara Sinclair, chief economist, Indeed, July 14 and Aug. 12, 2016

11:52 a.m.

July 14, 2016

It's true that California has more employed persons than in Texas as you can see in this graph, but it's also true that California has had a larger population than Texas since before 1940 (see this graph).

But once we consider differences in population and labor force makeup, a different picture emerges.  For example, consider this graph representing the unemployment rate in the two states where you can see that the unemployment rate (and therefore the number of unemployed people) is higher in California than in Texas.  So on that front, Texas looks better than California.  Furthermore, consider this graph showing the employment to population ratio in the two states.  Again we can see that the employment share is higher in Texas than in California.  

Thus, all-in-all I would say that focusing on the total number of people employed is misleading due to the different population sizes of the two states.  By both the unemployment rate (a standard measure of labor market health) as well as the employment to population ratio, Texas's labor market actually looks healthier than California's.  

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

On Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 7:23 PM, Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin) wrote:

Hello again. I hope you didn’t think I forgot about this fact check.

What do you make of the cited California edges on Texas in growth in GDP and per-capita personal income?

g.

W. Gardner Selby

Reporter / News

Austin American-Statesman

PolitiFact Texas

6:35 a.m.

Aug. 12, 2016

The real GDP growth comparison does put CA above TX slightly for 2015 (CA 4.1%, TX 3.8%) and more for 2016Q1 (latest available data: CA 2.0%, TX 0.3%, but quarterly state data can be quite volatile).  That's the measure I'd look at to support a claim on economic growth.

The other two things to look at are population changes and changes in cost of living.  I haven't done the calculations for this time period for the states, but my hunch is that in this case they don't make too much of a difference.

Best,

Tara