The races for most state-level offices are already geared toward November, the candidates for every post but schools superintendent having avoided run-offs.
Given Georgians’ propensity for straight-ticket voting, the outcome in many of these elections may depend in large part on who voters pick in the two races at the top of their ballots: the federal election for U.S. senator, and the election for governor. And if this election is like many previous ones, the election for governor will depend in large part on how voters feel about the economy.
Gov. Nathan Deal touts the many jobs created in his first term. Democrats say Georgia’s unemployment rate is still too high. Who has the better argument?
True, Georgia’s unemployment rate remains higher than most states. At 7 percent in April, it ranked 43rd in the nation.
But as we’ve seen nationally, the unemployment rate doesn’t always tell the whole story. That’s because the American work force is departing from its post-World War II trend. For the first time since women started entering the work force in large numbers, the U.S. labor pool has shrunk.
Nationally, that has shown up as a steadily falling unemployment rate even as actual job growth has been mediocre — because people have been leaving the labor force, either to retire or because they’ve given up hope of finding work, at a faster clip.
What does it mean for a state like Georgia?
Well, if they looked only at the unemployment rate, Georgians might be uncharacteristically jealous of states like Alabama (jobless rate of 6.9 percent) and Arkansas (6.6 percent). But they’d be wrong to feel that way.
It turns out, Alabama and Arkansas have lower unemployment rates than Georgia even though they have actually lost jobs since December 2010 (i.e., the month before Deal took office). That's because each of those states has lost more than 2 percent of its labor force during that time.
The result? Each of them has seen its unemployment rate fall, even though fewer of its residents are working.
These are extreme examples; the only other state to lose jobs during this time period is Mississippi, which has a jobless rate of 7.5 percent. But because 18 states had shrinking work forces, Georgia’s job performance is far better than its jobless rate indicates.
In fact, during Deal’s tenure Georgia ranks in the top third of states for job growth, at a rate of 4.5 percent. Our jobless rate remains so high in large part because our work force has grown by almost 1 percent, putting us in the top half of states on that count.
In other words, a relatively high unemployment rate isn’t scaring people away from Georgia because there are jobs to be had — as counter-intuitive as that may sound.
Oh, and by the way: Of the 16 states that enjoyed faster job growth than Georgia during that time, 14 had either a Republican governor or a totally GOP-controlled legislature the entire time. Ten had both. Adopting Democratic policies didn’t lead to better results for other states.
Voters focused on the economy don’t make decisions based on aggregate statistics, of course. They base their votes on the experiences of themselves and the people they know. But these numbers don’t suggest a voter rebellion is in the works.
