Red States Lead Economic Recovery with Lowest Unemployment Rates in the Nation

Republican states lead the economic recovery in the United States. This is a fact that you won’t hear from the mainstream media as they want you to believe that the socialist policies of democrat states coupled with the draconian federal government overreach are somehow the answer to recovering from the pandemic. The May jobs report shows some recovery but no one is crediting the Republican-led states for the uptick in jobs filled in the service industries.

Of course, the monthly jobs numbers have missed the mark yet again under Biden.

Not only did the 559,000 jobs added miss the mark by about 91,000 jobs we are still 7.6 million jobs below the mark set during President Trump’s time in office.

To put it bluntly, the Biden administration has a long way to go if they think they’re going to top what Trump did for the country during his 4 years in office.

Somehow the left continues to remain puzzled as to why we are in the situation we are in economically. The pandemic is waning, people are want to get vaccinated are getting vaccinated, and life is returning to normal.

That being said, one has to ask — why then is the government still paying people an extra $300/week in unemployment benefits when there are so many open jobs.

According to the Washington Examiner:

The economy fell slightly short of predictions and added 559,000new jobs in May after a bleak jobs report the month prior.

The unemployment rate was 5.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The numbers were a bit short of expectations, with the consensus among economists being that 650,000 jobs would be added, and unemployment would drop from 6.1% to 5.9%.

“It’s great to see a pickup to job growth, but it would have been better to see a larger acceleration,” said Nick Bunker, who leads North American economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “Adding over a half-million jobs in one month is a solid pace of growth, but we will need to keep up this tempo for quite some time to get back to a semblance of the pre-pandemic labor market.”

“Hopefully, we will see an acceleration in the months ahead. The labor market is not treading water, but it could take some time before we make it back to shore,” he said on Friday morning.

There were notable job gains in the leisure and hospitality industry, in public and private education, and in healthcare and social assistance, the report said. The leisure and hospitality industry alone added 292,000 jobs in May.

The less-than-anticipated May jobs report may give pause to those who think the economy might be growing too quickly after the Biden administration spent heavily on the country’s COVID-19 recovery.

The April report was a major disappointment, with the economy adding just 278,000 jobs — far below forecast predictions of nearly 1 million additional jobs. The unemployment rate also rose slightly to 6.1%, which was the first time it ticked up during the recovery from the pandemic recession, which at its April peak caused 14.8% unemployment across the country.

The news of the new jobs comes as businesses, particularly in the retail, dining, and travel industries, continue to open up as states lift pandemic-induced restrictions. Friday’s is the first jobs report since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance that those who are vaccinated don’t have to wear face coverings inside or outside.

At least 63% of adults in the United States have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 52% are fully vaccinated. That number is much higher among vulnerable populations, with 86% of those 65 or older having a least one shot and three-fourths fully inoculated.

Friday’s report might add to the concerns of some economists and lawmakers worried about a potential labor shortage in the U.S. Certain businesses, especially those such as restaurants that pay lower wages, have reported difficulty recruiting and retaining workers.

Some economists are placing some of the blame on the federal expanded unemployment program that gives those without jobs $300 in addition to state benefits, a figure that is on average more than double the federal minimum wage. Twenty-five states, all Republican-led, have announced that they would opt-out of the program before it sunsets in September.

What we are seeing is a step in the right direction, albeit a very slow step. What we won’t hear from the mainstream media is the fact that the increase in jobs is likely due in large part to the elimination of the $300/week in additional unemployment benefits.

And where are these additional unemployment benefits being removed? They are being eliminated in Republican-led states which in turn are leading the country in job numbers along with having the lowest unemployment rates when compared to blue states.

National Review reports:

A lot of different factors – including a multitude of federal and state policy decisions – go into a state’s economic health in general and its unemployment rate in particular. Even partisan control of a state may not tell us everything we need to know, given that some states have long-entrenched policies passed by a party that is presently not in power. Massachusetts and Maryland, for example, are still very much blue states in policy terms despite their Republican governors.

That said, state governors and the current state legislatures have had an outsized role in handling state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. And a year after states began locking down, this much is clear: states with unified Democratic governments have significantly higher unemployment, on average, than states with unified Republican government. States with divided government fall in between. When we break down the BLS seasonally-adjusted unemployment figures for March, 2021, the pattern is striking: