You Don't Say: While Biden Tries to Claim Credit, Red States Lead the Way on Jobs and Economic Recovery

The Republican National Committee is out there touting these numbers this week, as they should be. It would be political malpractice not to. The White House, national Democrats, and their news media allies attack red state governors at every turn, for transparently political reasons. They simultaneously try to credit the Biden administration with nationwide job growth and low unemployment – though they have no answers on the serious inflation problem they've fueled (which would be even worse if they'd managed to pass their $5 trillion "Build Back Better" agenda).

On the latter front, this is an economic and political disaster for the ruling party in Washington:

'Inflation-adjusted wages are falling faster than they have in 40 years.'https://t.co/BvQE23Fpv7
— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 18, 2022

Yes, job growth is real and the unemployment rate has fallen nationally. These were inevitable outcomes once the US economy, which was cooking with gas before COVID, really started rebounding from its pandemic emergency footing. Biden surrogates boasting about these metrics are conveniently comparing the current environment to January of last year when vaccines and effective treatments were still relatively scarce. The economy had nowhere to go but up in these key respects. But said growth has not been evenly distributed. What a coincidence:

12 of the top 15 states for jobs recovered since the pandemic began are led by Republicans. pic.twitter.com/9MAhm1wVCk
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 18, 2022

A couple observations:
- Texas has gained the most jobs since Feb. 2020 followed by Florida.
- Maine, Mississippi and Wyoming are close to recovering all job losses.
- Four of the states above saw their lowest unemployment rates ever in March.
— Bryan Mena (@bpmena) April 18, 2022

Nearly all of these states have GOP governors or conservative political climates, with a handful of exceptions like purple-blue Maine and Colorado (where the governor is a COVID moderate and a social radical). Texas and Florida leading the charge on jobs is not an accident, while the most populous state in the country – California – is nowhere to be found on the list above. Shameless hypocrite Gov. Gavin Newsom may profess to be thankful that California doesn't follow Florida's policy lead, but Florida is a lot better off than California these days. That's especially true on the critical measures of educational harm and learning loss:

More data from this analysis —> Spot the trend on open schools last academic year. The closures were deeply harmful for kids, as almost everyone (finally) acknowledges. Some leaders protected children’s wellbeing, based on data. Others exacerbated the needless harm: pic.twitter.com/HK0Ro62Sc5
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 13, 2022

California was dead last – 50th out of 50 states, leading only Washington, DC – on school closures. Florida was in the top three. No wonder people are "voting with their feet" in droves. In any case, the US economy is improving, horrible inflation notwithstanding, because red states are thriving. These states largely rejected the Biden/Fauci/media consensus, were demonized repeatedly for doing so, and are now heavily responsible for the growth for which Democrats are trying to claim credit. As I've said before, the president should be sending bouquets to some of these governors, as opposed to partisan barbs. But the activists in the press are going to activist. It's what they do:

Great read from Secretary @KayColesJames on Tax Day:

"The government has been overtaxing Virginians for far too long and is now expected to take in a staggering $14 billion surplus...we can significantly lower the tax burden on working families." https://t.co/qOWxzLE0eY
— Governor Glenn Youngkin (@GovernorVA) April 18, 2022