Misleading: Indiana's job loss seven times nation's.

PositionIndiana Indicators

How bad is the recession here? That question has occupied the attention of more than just economists. It is a bit troubling to see the conclusions being drawn getting ahead of the facts.

That was certainly the case in a widely circulated news story on job loss in Indiana since January 2000. Concerning the substance of the report--that the state's job loss of 95,000 since that time is substantial--there can be no doubt. But the story's widely repeated conclusion that the loss in Indiana has been seven times worse than the national job loss is, at best, misleading.

The recession of 2001 actually began in summer of 2000 as a manufacturing recession, spreading later to disrupt other sectors of the economy. Indiana, as a manufacturing-intensive state, felt that downturn earlier. If we start the growth comparison in January 2000, we find that 24 months later the Indiana economy has lost 3.1 percent of its jobs, at the same time as the national payrolls grew 0.4 percent.

But if we compare using March 2001--the official beginning of the national recession--as a starting point, the picture changes. In the 12 months since the spring of last year, the U.S. economy has lost 1.1 percent of payrolls, while the Indiana job losses stand at 1.4 percent.

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Latest Previous Period Preiod Employment (000) U.S. Apr. 02 131,230.0 131,187.0 Indiana Apr. 02 2,905.9 2,889.6 Manufacturing Employment...

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