Email, Tara Sinclair, associate professor of Economics and International Affairs, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, July 21, 2017

7:37 p.m.

Regarding the Texas claim, it seems like it's likely based on raw data. Admittedly raw totals for employment numbers are relatively uninteresting for a growing population. What's typically focused on is either the unemployment rate, so that you can get a sense of the share of the labor force that wants a job and doesn't currently have one, or the employment to population ratio to get a sense of the share of the population that is working (to control for population growth). According to the BLS's Texas Economy at a Glance, the seasonally adjusted employment in Texas is close to its all-time peak (technical April 2017 was a bit higher), but the unemployment rate was better in early 2015, and even better in mid-2007 and late 2000.  The phrase "more Texans have jobs" makes it sound like he might be talking about employment to population ratio, but similar to the national pattern for the employment-population ratio, Texas is still low relative to its historical peak (although doing a bit better than the national ratio). Texas' employment to population ratio peaked in 1998 at 65.6% and was only at 60.7% (I'm using annual data here):

Thus although based on raw numbers his claim is close to correct, that neglects the fact that Texas' population has been growing and is also at an all-time high, so a better comparison would be the employment to population ratio, but that was much better in the late 1990s than today.  Admittedly that is consistent with the national trend (in part due to aging population, but the national trend is still there for prime-age - I don't believe we have this age breakdown for the individual states), but it's disconcerting at the national level and also at the state level.

Best,

Tara