Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released state-level labor market data for May 2020. Texas, which started responsibly reopening its economy in early May, led the nation with 237,000 net nonfarm jobs added at a pace of 2% compared to California who delayed their opening and added 141,600 jobs last month at only a 0.9% pace.
“Today’s state level jobs report shows what’s to be expected as the states like Texas and Florida that phased out their shutdowns due to COVID-19 earlier had substantial job creation while states like California and New York that delayed theirs didn’t add nearly as many in total jobs or percent changes,” said TPPF’s Chief Economist Vance Ginn, Ph.D. “For the sake of lives and livelihoods, we can see from the data that ending the shutdowns along with pro-growth environments work to get people back to work while hospital capacity remains abundant to deal with potential flare-ups in the COVID-19 cases.”