While Rick Perry has been touting his record of creating jobs in Texas as a key reason he’d make a great president, it turns out employment numbers aren’t so peachy in his homestate either.
NBC’s Michael Isikoff reports that the Texas unemployment rate “increased to 8.5% in August — the highest level in more than 24 years and more than twice the rate when Perry took office in December 2000.”
That’s still below the 9.1 percent average nationwide. But remember how the latest national figures showed zero job growth? Well Perry’s Texas lost territory, shedding 1,300 in August. The private sector added 8,100 jobs, but the public sector lost 9,400.
“Texas is not immune to the effects of the national recession,” Ray Sullivan, Perry’s chief spokesman, told NBC. “Yet Texas continues to outperform the rest of the country and is still home to roughly 40% of the net new jobs created nationwide since June 2009.”
“And even during this national economic downturn, which the president’s misguided policies have only worsened, Texas remains the nation’s top economy, attracting jobs and growing by more than 1,000 people a day,” Sullivan added. “As president, Gov. Perry will get our nation’s fiscal house in order, free employers from the onerous tax and regulatory burdens undermining our economy, and restore confidence in private sector job creators across this nation so we can get America working again.”
