Bacon's Rebellion

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Virginia’s Economic Recovery Among Weakest in the Nation… Says Virginia’s Top Economic Developer

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James A. Bacon
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Jason El Koubi. Photo credit: Mark Robertson-Baker, UVA Wise, by way of Cardinal News.

by James A. Bacon

Governor Glenn Youngkin, Republicans, and other critics of the previous governor’s economic policies are not the only ones who are worried about Virginia’s slow rate of economic growth. Jason El Koubi, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, finds the Old Dominion’s lagging economic performance to be troubling, too.

Virginia currently ranks No. 47 in its jobs recovery, he said at the Southwest Virginia Economic Forum Wednesday.“ We are one of the most sluggish states in terms of getting back to our pre-employment baseline.” Reports Cardinal News: 

This is really concerning, not only because we haven’t recovered but because we’re hanging out with the wrong crowd right now. The states that have ‘powered out of the pandemic’ – North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida – were not only top growth states before the shutdown, but they’re Virginia’s economic development competitors.

These are our neighbors, and this is the crowd we compete with. This is the crowd that we really need to hang with.

Virginia can boast of an extremely low unemployment rate, but the state has seen a “precipitous drop” in labor force participation. Before the pandemic, 66% of working age adults worked. That percentage has dropped to 63% — well behind most of its neighbors.

El Koubi did not proffer an analysis of why Virginia’s economic recovery was so weak.

The silver lining was that Southwest Virginia, including Wise County where the conference was held, has rebounded economically faster than the rest of the state. After suffering the loss of more than 27,000 jobs in March/April 2020, the region saw employment return to pre-pandemic numbers this March, El Koubi said, while Virginia as a whole is still down by 3%, or 150,000 jobs.

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17 responses to “Virginia’s Economic Recovery Among Weakest in the Nation… Says Virginia’s Top Economic Developer”

  1. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
    f/k/a_tmtfairfax

    Things seem to be booming in North Carolina, at least in the Triangle. Almost every lot in our subdivision is either built or under construction. A huge jump from when we were down in February for the walk-through. NCDOT is working on a number of transportation projects in the North Raleigh-Wake Forest Area. There is considerable multi-family housing construction as well as SFH.

  2. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Wait. We have an ultra-low unemployment rate and an expanding surplus from increasing collections of payroll taxes and sales taxes.

    So once again, cherry-picking the data and ignoring other data… to present a picture that is not really fully representative of the situation in Virginia which is really ironic when some of the very same doom & gloomers are saying we have so much surplus we need to rebate it!

    The problem in BR many days is trying to get past the bias and untruths and get to a better place on the truth.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      Your argument isn’t worth BR, it’s with Jason El Koubi. Do you think he’s peddling biased untruths?

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        re: ” We are one of the most sluggish states in terms of getting back to our pre-employment baseline.” – how does that make sense if we have a low unemployment rate?

        Same question with labor participation.

        same question with significant surplus of both payroll taxes and sales taxes?

        what’s the truth of the numbers?

        How can it be so terrible if we have folks saying we have so much surplus we need to give it back?

        See, those are questions that should also be addressed if we want to have something beyond a narrow and biased sound bite view.

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0d74bd6ee8f1042bd61964844886280f509bf9b47eef8befa2fb6ab540dc9eaf.jpg

          https://www.vec.virginia.gov/node/14951

          1. walter smith Avatar
            walter smith

            So Larry – why don’t you try to answer your questions? (Instead of reflexively thinking everything is propaganda if it could possibly have a negative inference to your beloved Democrats)
            Can an economy be sluggish AND have a low unemployment rate?
            It’s math, so let me help…as people get discouraged or like living on unemployment, they drop out of the labor force and the denominator gets smaller. The number of people employed remains the same, but the unemployed percentage is smaller because of the smaller denominator.
            Significant surplus? Could be you low balled the budgets to look good (in the business world we called that sandbagging or having a bucket)
            Surplus – Bacon already suggested stock market and drunk sailor Covid money.

            I would prefer VA not engage in bidding for businesses and instead focus on business climate. Get rid of corporate tax, disavow ESG and require primacy of maximizing shareholder returns, get back to educating, not indoctrinating. The problem with the whore model is you are dealing with whores who will go to the next best payer when the deal is over. Try winning it because you are better.

    2. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      What is it about low workforce participation rate that you don’t understand?

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        so how can we look at the labor participation rate and understand how that impacts the economy if we ignore how the economy itself is doing?

        If Virginia’s economy is so sick ,how come it’s generating surpluses in tax revenue?

        there’s more to the story than just the low labor participation right. no?

        1. James A. Bacon Avatar
          James A. Bacon

          Thanks to COVID stimulus and a gangbuster stock market that generated immense capital gains, all states are enjoying big budget surpluses, not just Virginia. Let’s see what happens to capital gains tax revenue and budget surpluses if the bear market persists.

          1. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            here’s some truth:

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fff5ca4044575bc6aac46fad997af306815486a38ab9f60463bd50baa5833d40.jpg
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/63b2acaca22240068ac654c0b6779814298c171614e7ee12d2cc982b1a18baaa.jpg
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7c262e5cece992388d174b10871234294260386cfdb926dd58b81ac1759e8148.jpg

          2. DJRippert Avatar
            DJRippert

            If Virginia is the “best state for business” hy is our state GDP growth over the last year (4Q 2020 – 4Q 2021) 33rd?

            Our state GDP growth has been anemic for some time now.

            https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewdepietro/2022/05/17/us-gdp-by-state-and-fastest-growing-states-by-gdp-growth/?sh=2a2a26265a72

          3. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/77b90f52a370ca21f7ec3996b123f7186ca3b9f7c73230b5a4161040d997580e.jpg

    3. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Unemployment rate is a weak statistic since people who have given up looking for a job don’t count. Labor participation, viewed along with average population age, is a much better indicator of economic health.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        but if unemployment is low, it means jobs are filled and no more available.

        You’d see that in places like rural Virginia. where there simply are no more jobs available but not in places like NoVa where there are lots of jobs and lots of people with jobs, i.e. low unemployment.

  3. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    God, but I love cross references… https://www.baconsrebellion.com/governor-youngkins-experience-in-the-private-sector-appears-to-be-working-in-government/

  4. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Our energy and tax policy peers now are New York and California. But for our proximity to DC (see Boeing announcement) we’d really be sucking wind.

    https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-migration-data-2019-2020?utm_source=Empire+Center+emails&utm_campaign=d26266a786-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_11_14_04_16_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6cc7720848-d26266a786-248947617

    So that’s the newest IRS data on state inflow and outflow. Virginia showed a slight net outflow, not dramatic, but a stark contrast say with North Carolina and its strong inflow. Virginians in 2020 reported about $1 billion less in AGI than the year before, and two states with even more dramatic losses of population and total gross income were….California and New York! Our mentors! States like NC, TX, FL see that AGI total surging, jumping by double digit percentages. AGI = consumer spending. (Cool report, check it out.)

    1. energyNOW_Fan Avatar
      energyNOW_Fan

      That’s part of why Virginia elected officials so strongly want to build out offshore wind here…now there’s a private industry we can force to add jobs here. But of course, it is not really private industry jobs. DejaVu all over again for me, that was how New Jersey viewed utilities also.

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