Colorado has one of the strongest performing economies in the country. Job growth has been robust for the past several years, consistently ranking Colorado among the top states for job creation. The unemployment rate has dropped steadily since 2010 to 3.3 percent in 2016. Real median household income continues to grow and is now slightly above the pre-recession level. And poverty rates have fallen since 2012, dropping to 11 percent in 2016.
Yet, this report points to several challenges to achieving an economic recovery in Colorado that is broadly shared and enduring:
- The median hourly wage has been falling or flat since the recovery began.
- Economic gains are increasingly concentrated among a small share of high earners in the state.
- While jobs have returned to the state, not all workers have returned to work.
- Colorado is increasingly becoming a multiracial state with a persistent race-based economic divide.
Publication
In the third quarter of 2017, Wisconsin posted modest job growth, adding just 7,300 jobs. Growth in September had to make up for job losses in the previous months. In August, the state lost 7,100 jobs – the worst month in jobs in more than a year. Private sector job growth in September was strong enough to make up for August’s losses and the state completed the third quarter of 2017 with 2,900 more private sector jobs. Wisconsin’s public sector has been unsteady but ended the quarter with 4,400 additional jobs after a strong September. Public sector employment is now slightly above the January level, despite losses over the summer. The unemployment rate continues to drop slowly across the nation and Wisconsin is not an exception. Unemployment in Wisconsin stands now at 3.5%, significantly below the level of the end of 2016, but up slightly from an early summer low of 3.1%.
Publication
New Jersey’s economy has not recovered from the recession like it could – and should – have. Economic difficulties that began with losses in manufacturing jobs throughout the 1980s have persisted. Despite a diverse population and a shift in land use from sprawling suburban growth to more infill development, job numbers and GDP are growing too slowly. And what growth there is, isn’t distributed equally. New Jersey struggles with extreme racial and economic disparities that distribute the benefits of the economy not as shared prosperity, but to the wealthy.
The District of Columbia can use its economic development efforts to stem the tide of the city’s rising income inequality, but it is failing to do so. Instead, the District’s economic development efforts—including the enormous Wharf project—often support creation of low-wage jobs with minimal benefits, a lost opportunity to reduce inequities. By not including requirements to create high-quality jobs, the District encourages developers to compete for projects and profits by aggressively cutting labor costs—at the expense of workers’ ability to live in the District and support their families.