A new data tool from Stateline.org illustrates just how slow the economic recovery has been going in most parts of the country.
The chart (available here) is based on five years of employment figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and shows that job growth has slowed to a crawl in most states over the past 12 months. Thirty-one states saw either a slight decline in the number of jobs or job growth of less than 1 percent over the past year. Of those, New Hampshire was one of seven states to see a drop in the number of employed people.
Job growth topped 2 percent in a handful of southwestern states (Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and Utah) and North Dakota, where employment increased more than 7 percent over the past year. But nationwide, the U.S. has 4.8 million fewer jobs than in 2008.
In April 2010, Center Economist Dennis Delay warned that the recovery would likely be “slow and jobless.” At the time, the Congressional Budget Office expected very slow growth coming out of the recession – about 2 percent a year in 2010 and 2011. Based on these and other forecasts, we said that it would likely take five years for the country to return to pre-recession job levels. But with economic growth progressing even slower than predictions, that recovery will likely be delayed even further.
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