Miami, FL – According to a new survey from Portfolio.com and bizjournals, Florida under Charlie Crist joins Nevada and California among “the nation’s weakest economies.” And this is “a stunning reversal” from 2005 when Florida was listed as having the best economy in the nation. This survey comes two weeks after CNBC ranked Florida’s economic health near the bottom in the nation at 48th.
“Today’s news is a sad reminder that Charlie Crist’s prescription of wasteful stimulus spending, higher taxes, more state debt, cap-and-trade energy taxes and bailouts has failed our state as unemployment is up and our economy is weaker,” said Alex Burgos, Rubio for Senate spokesman. “Washington doesn’t need another say and do anything politician like Charlie Crist that will be a ‘yes’ vote for the Obama-Reid-Pelosi anti-growth, anti-jobs agenda that is hurting job creation in America. Marco Rubio is the only candidate who will go to Washington as a check-and-balance to the policies taking our nation in the wrong direction and is offering a clear pro-growth, pro-jobs alternative.”
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“Survey: Florida Among Weakest U.S. Economy”
By G. Scott Thomas
South Florida Business Journal
July 27, 2010
Florida, Nevada, and California have the nation’s weakest economies, according to a midyear review of state employment trends by Portfolio.com and bizjournals.
That’s a stunning reversal from half a decade ago. Florida and Nevada finished first and second, respectively, in 2005’s midyear review. California was a respectable 11th.
But this year’s study puts Nevada in 51st place, dead-last among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. California (50th) and Florida (49th) are barely a step ahead.
Several factors have turned the three leaders into laggards during the past five years, notably the deflation of their hyper-expanded real estate bubbles and a sharp downturn in tourism.
Florida, Nevada, California have collectively lost 1.69 million jobs since 2005. All are currently saddled with double-digit unemployment rates, with Nevada the worst at 14.0 percent. Florida’s unemployment rate fell slightly to 11.4 percent from 11.7 percent in June. The numbers show that there are 1,056,000 jobless in the state out of a labor force of 9,237,000.
Surprises can also be found at the top of the new midyear standings. Tiny North Dakota enjoys the nation’s strongest economy at the moment, and Alaska holds second place, according to the Portfolio.com/bizjournals rankings.
Both frontrunners registered impressive gains during the past half-decade, at a time when most other states were suffering sizable declines. North Dakota expanded its employment base by 7.8 percent from 2005 to 2010, adding 21,300 jobs. Alaska’s corresponding gain was 4.4 percent or 10,100 jobs.
Portfolio.com and bizjournals developed a nine-part formula to analyze state-by-state employment trends. The formula uses U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for the latest five-year period (May 2005 through May 2010), focusing on raw and percentage changes in private-sector employment, as well as unemployment rates.
The recent half-decade was not kind to most parts of the country. Forty states had fewer jobs in May 2010 than five years earlier. The nation lost a total of 4.51 million private-sector positions between mid-2005 and mid-2010.
But the severity of the economic recession has been tempered in states with affordable housing, especially those in the heartland that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border.
Six of the top 10 states are located within that broad belt, including North Dakota (first place), Texas (third), South Dakota (fourth), Nebraska (sixth), Louisiana (seventh) and Utah (10th).
The other leaders, besides Alaska, come from the Northeast, which has weathered the recession with greater ease than the Sunbelt. The Northeastern members of the upper echelon are the District of Columbia (fifth), New York (eighth) and New Hampshire (ninth).
Seven of the 10 strongest states managed to add private-sector positions between 2005 and 2010. The top 10, as a group, gained a total of 485,600 jobs. Their collective unemployment rate was 7.9 percent as of May, with North Dakota posting the nation’s best rate, a microscopic 3.6 percent.
The 10 states at the bottom of the standings, on the other hand, were burdened with an overall unemployment rate of 11.8 percent in May. All 10 have suffered private-sector job losses since 2005, resulting in a collective drop of 3.12 million jobs.
Several of the nation’s biggest states join California and Florida on this unhappy list, include Michigan (48th place), Georgia (46th), Ohio (45th) and Arizona (44th). Their declines have been triggered by varying combinations of real-estate woes, slowdowns in the construction and tourism sectors, and slippage in manufacturing output, especially within the auto industry.
The employment bases of these bottom states have eroded at an alarming pace. California’s loss of 950,300 private-sector jobs since 2005 is the equivalent of losing 520 jobs every day for five years. Florida’s rate of decline is 350 jobs per day, and Michigan’s is 280 per day.
