If you’re slowly climbing a mountain, you might not realize how far you’ve come until you turn around and look down. You might also get a sense of how many other hikers you’ve passed (you’ve probably been watching the backs of the faster guys for a while).
Which is a little like the feeling you get from seeing the changes in the Georgia economy since the recession's depth.
The state has added 414,000 private sector jobs – a robust 12.6 percent expansion – since January 2009. That is according to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, which paused along the trail Monday to look back at how far we've come since the economy was in freefall.
The committee, chaired by Sen. Dan Coats (R-Indiana), issued a report on each state's progress – or lack of same.
Wyoming, for instance, is in worse shape. The Cowboy State has lost 7.3 percent of its private sector jobs since the start of 2009.
But most every other state has done pretty well and Georgia has done better than most. True, Georgia was pounded harder than most, too. The housing bubble was bigger here, the burst of the bubble did more damage, sending the unemployment rate into double digits.
But since January 2009, Georgia ranks fifth in the number of private sector jobs added. Ahead of Georgia are some much bigger states – California and Texas – and two states that arguably suffered even more during the recession: Michigan and Florida.
Percentage-wise, Georgia ranks 10th in growth since the start of 2009. As the Georgia Department of Labor has often pointed out, the state's growth has been faster than the national pace for some time. Most recently, Georgia's jobless rate dropped to 5.1 percent.
Top growth:
— North Dakota, 22.8 percent
— Utah, 17.6 percent
— Florida, 14.8 percent
— Texas, 15.7 percent
— Washington, D.C., 13.5 percent
— Colorado, 13.4 percent
— Michigan, 13.3 percent
— California, 13.0 percent
— Idaho, 12.8 percent
— Georgia, 12.6 percent
The committee issues these reports regularly, tracking the economy.
Nationally, the private sector has added 10.6 million jobs since the start of 2009, 9.5 percent growth.
A long way up the mountain, for sure.
Which is not the same as saying we’re at the top, of course. There are still a quarter-million Georgians officially unemployed – out of work and looking for a job. And that doesn’t include people who have gone back to school or given up on looking for work.
But the improvement is dramatic: At the job market’s lows, there were about a half-million officially jobless.
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