Mr. Mercer notes a "hiccup" in South Dakota's unemployment numbers. After a mostly positive year, jobs in South Dakota dipped in July, from a seasonally adjusted 427,000 in June to 426,600 in July.
I'd analyze the numbers, but the state Department of Labor's website is giving error messages this morning. Perhaps one of those 400 lost jobs is the DOL webmaster.
And perhaps the other 399 are teachers and other public employees who've lost their jobs thanks to the Daugaard "new norm" budget that took effect on July 1. Though hang on: teacher contracts generally start in August, so the K-12 job losses may not register until the August report. But might other public employees have hit the streets with their pink slips in July?
Looking at the employment archive on my hard drive, I find July appears to be a generally good month or jobs. Might the beginning of our new austere public fiscal year have something to do with this July's negative jobs turn? Could this be the first Daugaard hiccup? If so, hold your breath, and hope they don't continue!
Update 08:36 CDT: Robert Reich says local, state, and national austerity budgets are exactly the problem.
Cory,
You should stop repeating the GOP establishment lies. There were no cuts, South Dakota spending is budgeted to go up. The Board of Regents and the Department of Social Services are the big winners. The lack of jobs reflect the truth...government does not create economic growth.
Steve, I work again in K-12 education. I know there were cuts, decreases in real dollars being spent.
Then Cory, ask where are the jobs that are being created by the Board of Regents? Again, government simply puts money fron one pocket into another. The best we can hope for is a net zero change economically. Unfortunately corruption causes the money to go into areas that are not as production as they should be. So the net difference is negative economic growth. A very simple concept to understand, so why doesn't the leadersips of the Democrat and Republican parties understand? Or is it they know, they are just in favor of a corrupt system.
Some cuts to education don't show up as job lost. For example, my job was cut to 50%. Since I declined doing the
same amount for work in half the time for half the pay, I didn't qualify for unemployment. In addition, I also worked 15 hrs/week at a second job, which also would have put me
out of the running for an unemployment check. I hesitate to directly comment to you, Steve, because one really mustn't feed the trolls, but you don't know everything you think you do.