Fact check: Is New Mexico "at the bottom" for job growth?

February 18, 2016
By Charles Aull

In prepared remarks responding to Governor Susana Martinez’s (R) 2016 State of the State Address, New Mexico Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez (D) lamented that New Mexico is “at the bottom for job growth” when compared with the rest of the country. Sanchez’s comments underscored his larger argument that Martinez’s policies throughout her first term in office “have left New Mexicans struggling” and that businesses in New Mexico are “hurting.”^[1] But is he right about job growth in New Mexico?

Job growth in New Mexico

To fact check Sanchez’s statement, we took seasonally-adjusted employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from the beginning of Martinez’s tenure in January 2011 to November 2015—the month for which the data is currently most accurate and up-to-date—and looked at it from two different perspectives.

First, we figured out the net change in jobs for all 50 states. This means that we compared how many jobs a state had in January 2011 to how many it had in November 2015. The difference between these two numbers is called the net change. To rank the states, we converted each state’s net change into a percentage in order to account for differences in population. We found that in January 2011, New Mexico had a total of 802,700 nonfarm jobs. As of November 2015, there were 831,800 jobs, a net increase of 3.6 percent. When we compare this to the rest of the country, New Mexico’s 3.6 percent increase comes in at number 45, between Mississippi and Pennsylvania. The state with the highest percent increase in jobs since January 2011 was North Dakota at 18 percent, while the lowest was West Virginia with 0.3 percent. The average job growth increase during this time period was 7.8 percent.

State-by-state net job growth, Jan. 2011 to Nov. 2015
Rank	State	Percent change	Jobs added
1	North Dakota	18.0	69,700
2	Utah	16.7	199,600
3	California	13.7	1,958,400
3	Texas	13.7	1,436,800
5	Florida	13.4	966,000
6	Idaho	13.1	79,700
7	Colorado	12.9	289,200
8	Nevada	12.2	137,200
9	Georgia	12.0	463,900
9	Washington	12.0	343,600
11	South Carolina	11.5	210,200
12	Oregon	11.2	181,700
13	Arizona	11.1	267,600
14	North Carolina	10.2	397,700
15	Tennessee	10.1	266,200
16	Michigan	9.7	379,100
17	Indiana	8.7	246,000
18	Massachusetts	8.6	281,000
19	Hawaii	8.3	49,200
20	Kentucky	8.2	146,300
21	New York	7.9	684,200
-	Average	7.8	235,623
22	Minnesota	7.5	201,600
23	South Dakota	7.4	30,200
24	Delaware	7.3	30,700
24	Iowa	7.3	108,000
26	Ohio	7.2	368,300
27	Nebraska	6.8	64,600
28	Montana	6.7	28,700
29	Oklahoma	6.4	101,200
30	Maryland	6.1	156,700
30	Rhode Island	6.1	28,300
32	Vermont	5.8	17,500
33	Wisconsin	5.7	158,000
34	Alabama	5.4	100,900
35	Kansas	5.3	71,100
36	New Jersey	5.2	200,400
37	Connecticut	5.0	81,400
37	New Hampshire	5.0	31,400
39	Illinois	4.8	272,200
39	Virginia	4.8	179,600
41	Louisiana	4.7	90,000
42	Arkansas	4.3	5,050
43	Missouri	4.1	109,300
44	Mississippi	3.8	40,800
45	New Mexico	3.6	29,100
46	Pennsylvania	3.2	184,300
47	Maine	3.1	18,900
48	Alaska	2.7	9000
49	Wyoming	2.6	7,400
50	West Virginia	0.3	2,200
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

The second approach that we used focused on average annual growth rates. To do this, we figured out the annual percent increase or decrease for each state from January 2011 to November 2015 and calculated the averages. New Mexico had an average annual growth rate of 0.682 percent during this time period, a tie with Maine for 43. North Dakota and West Virginia again rounded out the list at one and 50, respectively.

State-by-state average annual job growth, Jan. 2011 to Nov. 2015
Rank	State	Growth rate
1	North Dakota	3.068
2	Utah	2.834
3	Texas	2.426
4	Florida	2.386
5	California	2.276
6	Colorado	2.206
7	Georgia	2.160
8	South Carolina	2.084
9	Idaho	2.066
10	Nevada	2.014
10	Washington	2.014
12	Arizona	1.966
13	Oregon	1.922
14	Tennessee	1.898
15	North Carolina	1.796
16	Indiana	1.67
17	Hawaii	1.644
18	Michigan	1.638
19	Massachusetts	1.614
20	New York	1.462
21	Minnesota	1.436
22	Kentucky	1.410
-	Average	1.382
23	South Dakota	1.354
24	Iowa	1.294
25	Delaware	1.286
26	Oklahoma	1.282
27	Ohio	1.248
28	Nebraska	1.126
29	Wisconsin	1.124
30	Maryland	1.098
31	Montana	1.082
32	Alabama	1.046
33	Vermont	1.014
34	Virginia	1.010
35	Louisiana	0.948
36	Illinois	0.946
37	Kansas	0.928
38	New Hampshire	0.906
39	Rhode Island	0.900
40	New Jersey	0.880
41	Arkansas	0.790
42	Connecticut	0.728
43	New Mexico	0.682
43	Maine	0.682
45	Missouri	0.676
46	Mississippi	0.646
47	Pennsylvania	0.628
48	Alaska	0.412
49	Wyoming	0.390
50	West Virginia	0.048
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

For some added context, the chart below shows New Mexico’s annual job growth rates from 2003—the start of Martinez’s predecessor Bill Richardson’s (D) term—to 2015 in comparison with the country as a whole and the surrounding states of Nevada, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. New Mexico's job growth, by-and-large, followed trends in the U.S. and neighboring states from 2003 through the financial crisis that began in 2007, though its job growth rates remained higher during the recession itself. Since 2010, however, job growth in New Mexico has trailed the nation and surrounding states in the southwest.

Conclusion

Sanchez, then, was largely correct when he said that New Mexico is “at the bottom for job growth” in comparison with the rest of the country. Based on our own analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, we found that while New Mexico is not, strictly speaking, at the bottom, it is in the bottom quintile.

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Sources and Notes

↑ NMpolitics.net, "Democrats’ response to Martinez’s 2016 State of the State address," January 19, 2016

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