The Business Journals' On Numbers blog ranks U.S. governors on their states' job creation rates. South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard comes out 13th, with 16,200 more jobs in South Dakota than when he took office in January 2011. That's 900 more jobs than we would have had if the state's job pool had grown at the national rate for the same period.
Of course, saying that Governor Daugaard has the 13th best job creation rate is somewhat like saying he has the 13th best snow-making rate. Consider the top-ranked job-creating governor, North Dakota's Jack Dalrymple. Since coming to office a month before Daugaard, Governor Dalrymple has pretty just held on and let it rain black all over the Bakken oil field.
Experts can (and do) argue about the ability of any governor to manipulate a state's economy. Many are downright skeptical. Economist Justin Wolfers, for instance, has written that governors often benefit from lucky breaks, such as the energy boom that is driving the current growth in North Dakota and Texas.
But the On Numbers study reflects a basic fact of political life. Governors routinely take credit for economic growth (regardless of their actual level of involvement), and are equally certain to be blamed for economic decline [G. Scott Thomas, "Governors and Jobs: How Governors Rank for Job Creation in Their States," On Numbers, 2013.06.27].
If you want to dismiss these numbers, that's cool; just understand that when Denny comes asking for your vote next year, he won't dismiss them. So roll with him and ask, "O.K., if you're so great at creating jobs, how come those dirty liberals Deval Patrick and Jerry Brown beat you?" The Massachusetts governor ties for 7th on job creation; the California governor ranks 10th. Next door, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton ranks 15th.
A caveat about the numbers: Thomas says this ranking uses seasonally adjusted private-sector jobs as coun ted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you check out our state Department of Labor website (and oh, yes, for statistical fun, you should!), you find the number of total jobs created is just under 10,000. Maybe the private sector is up, but the public sector (the jobs for which the Governor gets more direct credit or blame) must be dragging the total down.
Perhaps a better question to ask is how Governor Daugaard stacks up against his predecessors. DOL online data only goes back to 1990, so we can't compare Daugaard to Peter Norbeck. But here are the average January-to-January job growth rates for the five governors since 1990:
- Mickelson: 0.8%
- Miller: 3.4%
- Janklow: 1.1 %
- Rounds: 0.5%
- Daugaard: 0.7%
Hmm... in recent history, the Rounds-Daugaard team has underperformed. Step it up, Governor Daugaard!
By all but ignoring Indian reservations the state misses an opportunity to supercharge economic development. If the state were less adversarial toward tribes (and Democratic ideas) we would have a casino on the SD side of the Iowa border by Sioux Falls - and maybe not one on the Iowa side. You can thank Kristi Noem for fending off that opportunity when she attacked Scott Heidepriem for partisan purposes and her own personal aggrandizement.
But beyond that, the state should be working actively with our congressional delegation and the tribes to build up tribal legal systems and other institutions and to help attract business to the reservations.
Government likes to think they are running things. But the biggest factor in the economy is the private sector. And in South Dakota the biggest industry is agriculture. Except for last years drought we were going on three great rain years in a row and five great price years in a row. No amount of government can make or break that.
Correction, Roger: Agriculture is not South Dakota's biggest industry. Agriculture generates 10.9% of our state GDP, the highest percentage in the nation, but more of our GDP comes from finance and insurance (15.5%) and government (12.7%).