Midterms, Money and Miscalculations

I get the message.  The fact is, I hate Trump, you hate Trump, with the exception of a few wingnuts, all God’s children hate Trump.  There is no credible question as to whether or not this ill-begotten President is the most embarrassing, least prepared, dangerously ignorant and psychologically flawed person to ever hold the office. 

            But Trump is not on the ballot this November.  The Democrats are trying to put him there, and with less than a 32% approval rating they can’t be blamed for that swing of the bat, but they thought they had a sure thing two years ago, too.  Perhaps they should look around at a few other numbers—something that requires analysis instead of invective.

In a reversal of fortune that can only be good news to small and rural communities the smaller counties in this great land are showing the largest increase in job growth.   The data that I am referring to comes from a September 9, 2018 Brookings Institute article by Munro and Whiton. The numbers are only for the first part of 2018, but the trend starts in 2016.  It seems that a rising tide floats all boats, but the following shows that some of the boats are in a slightly friendlier harbor.

 While job growth in large population centers has grown by 0.9% since January of this year, the job growth in small and rural areas has grown to 1.15%.  When you consider the unemployment rate is around 3.9% that means that close to a third of rural unemployed are finding jobs. 

             This has got to be good news for the poorest, unhappiest, most opioid addicted and least represented parts of our country.  These are the counties, the people and the circumstances that the media have, for years, chosen to turn into scathing cartoons easily dismissed as a joke and waved off as second-class citizens.  The Democratic party wrote them off as irrelevant bumpkins.  The Republican establishment took them on as pawns, but not policy makers.  The entertainment industry decided that they were the only demographic that you could ridicule without fear of chastisement. 

            But aren’t these jobs the insignificant, unimportant, low-paying jobs of the rabble?  Don’t these figures represent the scraps of employment only fit for the kind of people you find in rural America’s fiefdoms?  That would certainly fit the paradigm of the country’s entitled and entrenched powers-that-be.  It would fit both their beliefs, and their vanity.  [That bachelor’s degree in art history with a minor in media communication must be worth something.  Right?]  Unfortunately, they would be wrong—again—and to their continued woe.

            It is the goods producing industries that have been growing while service industries, all adjusted for seasonal changes are slowing.  While total non-farm employment has risen by 1.5% this year, the heavy industries have increased by significantly higher numbers. 

            Industry growth rate           2016               2017                2018 (as of July)

            Logging and mining:           -11.6%             8%                  7.4%

            Construction                             2.8%           2.9%               3.5%

            Manufacturing                      -0.3%             1.5%                2.4%

            Compare these numbers to the favored intellectual sons of the millennia:

            Financial activities               2.0%               1.4%                1.1%

            Information                           1.8%                -1.2%              0.7%

            Professional Services           1.7%                2.1%                2.5%

        The heavy industries are not just providing more jobs, they are good-paying jobs with OSHA protected workplaces and fringe benefits.  These are the jobs that are relocating to small town counties.  There are lots of reasons.  Cost of living, availability of workforce (evidently some out-of-work people are actually looking for a job!) safe, unpolluted and visually pleasing surroundings seem to be available in the heartland. 

       If a job is what you want, then the people in the hinterland are happy.  Happy people don't rock the boat.  True, there is growth in almost all sectors, but it is now being spread a bit more equitably.  This increase in rural growth performs the same function as baffles. These discrete pockets of economic growth, spread across the country, act as buffers to the economic ebb and flow.  Baffles tame waves. 

            Respect the little guy and keep the faith.