A numbers game

Gov. Chris Christie answers questions during a town hall meeting today in Sayreville.

The state got some good news today as its unemployment rate dropped for the third-straight month to reach its lowest level in four years. The rate now stands at 8.7 percent, the lowest level of the Christie administration.

Gov. Chris Christie, speaking to a packed house at a town hall meeting in Sayreville today credited his tax policies and touted his balanced budget. But it is unclear exactly what is driving the numbers.

According to the press release issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, 4,100 jobs were added in April by the private sector, with a total of 131,500 being added since February 2010.

“The marked decline in unemployment over the last year mainly reflects the ongoing gains in jobs we are experiencing. April saw the largest 12-month gain in the number of employed residents that New Jersey has seen in seven years, with an increase of more than 60,000 compared to April 2012,” said Charles Steindel, Chief Economist for the New Jersey Department of Treasury.

New Jersey Policy Perspective, however, saw the report as mixed, at best. Its president, Gordon MacInnes, issues the following statement:

“While we’re certainly glad to see New Jersey’s jobless rate drop below 9 percent for the first time since 2009, it would be foolish to claim victory and to assume that the state’s economy has recovered. It hasn’t. There remain 400,000 people officially looking for work and many more who have given up, our jobless rate remains much higher than the nation’s, and New Jersey has still recovered less than half the jobs it lost in the Great Recession, while neighbors like New York have recovered all of them plus added even more. Add to that the relatively low-wage nature of our new jobs, and it’s clear: New Jersey needs to do more to create good jobs.”

What I find striking is how easy it is to use the numbers to prove nearly any point you need to make.
The fact is that the state’s economy, like the national one, remains badly flawed and in need of help. Just cutting taxes is not going to do it.
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