Romney’s REAL record on jobs is lousy

Romney likes to talk about his job creation record citing thousands of jobs he supposedly “created” while at Bain.  As numerous fact checkers have reported, Romney’s job claims are based upon dubious accounting and trickery.  See here: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/01/romneys-shaky-job-claims/ and here: http://go.bloomberg.com/political-economy/2012-05-17/fact-checking-romneys-jobs-stats/ 

Additionally, as many have pointed out, Romney’s role at Bain was to create profits for investors, not create jobs.  As Joe Biden and others have pointed out Romney’s experiences at Bain have little relationship to the job of a president.  As Biden put it, “Working In Private Equity ‘No More Qualifies You To Be President Than Being A Plumber’”

Of course, Romney was Governor of Massachusetts which seems a lot more relevant.  So, what was Romney’s job creation record while serving as Governor?  Andrew Sum and Joseph McLaughlin at the Center for Market Studies at Northeastern University examined Romney’s record while Governor back in 2007.  They concluded that Romney’s economic and jobs record while Governor of Massachusetts was horrible.

Our analysis reveals a weak comparative economic performance of the state over the Romney years, one of the worst in the country.

On all key labor market measures, the state not only lagged behind the country as a whole, but often ranked at or near the bottom of the state distribution. Formal payroll employment in the state in 2006 was still 16,000 or 0.5 percent below its average level in 2002, the year immediately prior to the start of the Romney administration. Massachusetts ranked third lowest on this key job generation measure and would have ranked second lowest if Hurricane Katrina had not devastated the Louisiana economy. Manufacturing payroll employment throughout the nation declined by nearly 1.1 million or 7 percent between 2002 and 2006, but in Massachusetts it declined by more than 14 percent, the third worst record in the country.

While the number of employed people over age 16 in the United States rose by nearly 8 million, or close to 6 percent, between 2002 and 2006, the number of employed residents in the Commonwealth is estimated to have modestly declined by 8,500. Massachusetts was the only state to have failed to post any gain in its pool of employed residents. The aggregate number of people 16 and older either working or looking for work in Massachusetts fell over the Romney years.

We were one of only two states to have experienced no growth in its resident labor force. Again, without the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina on the dispersal of the Louisiana population, Massachusetts would have ranked last on this measure. 

Check out the graphic below from the Sum/McLaughline article or see it here: 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/07/29/romneys_economic_record/