Data for this post was compiled by Matt Separa, Research
Assistant with the Economic Policy Team at the Center for
American Progress Action Fund. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), since he
launched his presidential campaign on Saturday, has paraded
around the stat that “since June of 2009, Texas is responsible
for more than 40 percent of all of the new jobs created in
America.” “Now think about that. We’re home to less than 10
percent of the population in America, but 40 percent of all the
new jobs were created in that state,” Perry says. This stat
leaves out a lot of the story. The Federal Reserve Bank of
Dallas has promoted the number, but “it acknowledges that the
number comes out different depending on whether one compares
Texas to all states or just to states that are adding jobs.”
Between 2008 and 2010, jobs actually grew at a faster pace in
Massachusetts than in Texas. In fact, “Texas has done worse than
the rest of the country since the peak of national unemployment
in October 2009.” The unemployment rate in Te