Jobless Recession Still Going Strong In Texas

"The jobless rate in Texas remained well below the national figure of 9.7 percent." That statement is taken from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and seems to imply that things are good in Texas. They somehow fail to mention that Texas is a "right-to-work" (non-union) state, and while the jobless figure is slightly below the national average (8.2% in January in Texas), many of those jobs are minimum wage jobs with no benefits.

If a person wants to flip burgers part-time for minimum wage, then come on down to Texas. You can probably find that kind of job here. But if you're looking for a good job with a living wage and benefits that will allow you to support a family, then you'll find that Texas is in just as much trouble as the other states.

Remember, that 8.2% figure only counts the people getting unemployment benefits (and those benefits are meager in Texas). The actual jobless figure in Texas would be closer to about 15-16%, when you count those who have exhausted their benefits or don't qualify for benefits or have taken part-time work because they can't find full-time work.

The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) had reported that Texas lost 276,000 jobs in 2009. However, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas puts the amount of jobs lost at over 329,000 (20% more), and the TWC is now grudgingly admitting the Fed's figure is probably right. That's a lot of jobs for a state to lose in one year -- even a state as large as Texas.

Our Republican state leaders would like to paint a rosy picture of the Texas economy, but even rose-colored glasses can't hide the fact that the jobless situation in this state is bad and still getting worse. Even here in Amarillo, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the state at 6.0%, the actual unemployment is probably closer to 13% when all the unemployed and underemployed are counted.

Here are the unemployment figures for Texas cities. Remember, you must add approximately 7% to these figures to get the actual unemployment number. The numbers are for January with the figures for December in parentheses. Looks to me like unemployment is still rising across the state.

Abilene 6.7 (6.0)

Amarillo 6.0 (5.4)

Austin-Round Rock 7.6 (7.0)

Beaumont-Port Arthur 11.0 (10.4)

Brownsville-Harlingen 11.6 (10.8)

College Station-Bryan 6.4 (5.7)

Corpus Christi 8.4 (7.7)

Dallas-Plano-Irving 8.7 (8.0)

El Paso 9.9 (9.2)

Fort Worth-Arlington 8.7 (8.0)

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown 8.8 (8.2)

Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood 7.8 (7.1)

Laredo 9.6 (8.8)

Longview 8.3 (7.8)

Lubbock 6.2 (5.5)

McAllen-Edinburg-Mission 12.2 (11.5)

Midland 6.2 (5.7)

Odessa 9.2 (8.7)

San Angelo 7.0 (6.4)

San Antonio-New Braunfels 7.7 (6.9)

Sherman-Denison 8.9 (8.2)

Texarkana n/a (6.7)

Tyler 8.6 (8.0)

Victoria 8.3 (7.8)

Waco 7.4 (6.8)

Wichita Falls 8.4 (7.6)