Governor Kristi Noem has said South Dakota’s economy is stagnant and is taking a devastating hit from Donald Trump’s reckless trade policy.
I don’t know if this counts as evidence of “stagnation,” but according to numbers crunched by Governing‘s Mike Maciag, South Dakota posted the 20th-highest job growth in the U.S. last year, 1.6%. That rate beat Montana (1.3%), Nebraska (1.2%), Minnesota (1.1%), Iowa (1.1%), and North Dakota (0.2%), but lagged Wyoming (2.2%). Nevada led the nation at 3.3%; Utah and Washington managed 3.0%.
Socialist and immigrant-plagued California’s workforce grew 2.0%.
South Dakota posted the highest increase (2.2%) in employment-to-population ratio. 85.5% of South Dakotans between ages 25 and 54 are working. That ratio is highest in Iowa (86.5%) and is above 85% in New Hampshire, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
So even if farm prices are tanking, lots of us in farm country are still working.
Creighton University economist Ernie Goss reports that his Mid-America Business Conditions Index for February peaked above its most recent peak from September, when candidate Noem was telling us things are bad.
Governor Noem’s view of the economy has probably changed, now that she’s in a position to give her kids and in-laws cushy jobs in Pierre. The average South Dakotan household sending both parents out to work for substandard wages and pay sales tax on food may not share that sanguine view.
Having a job is good for SD, but not so much if this is also the case, and it mostly is:
“The average South Dakotan household sending both parents out to work for substandard wages and pay sales tax on food may not share that sanguine view.”