From 2007 to 2014, the employment rate among 25- to 54-year-olds has declined in the United States by 3.5 percent, and no state reported employment gains during that time, according to data released by the Pew Charitable Trust on Tuesday.

The state with the largest decline is New Mexico, where 9.2 percent fewer people are employed today than they were in 2007. Vermont and Nebraska had the smallest decline, both less than 1 percent, and 19 other states had declines that were determined to be not statistically significant.

The study used data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau and concluded the employment-to-population ratio for prime-age workers is weak and poses problems for states’ budgets as income from sales and business tax is down and costs for services like Medicaid are up.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govb...recession/

And then there's this:


State Finances: Stop the music. All the merriment over the California recovery may have been a bit premature. Tax revenues are way down this year in the Golden State, and this could throw the books back into the red.

Not so Golden State

Here is the sobering analysis released last week from the Rockefeller Institute of Government, which monitors state spending and revenues:

"After four years of uninterrupted growth, states' tax collections saw a decline in the first quarter of 2014. Preliminary figures for the second quarter of 2014 indicate further declines in personal income-tax collections and possibly in overall state taxes."

Then came the show stopper:

"Most of the decline is attributable to a single state — California — where personal income-tax collections declined by $2 billion, or 11.1%. If we exclude California, personal income tax collections show a growth of 2.0% in personal income tax collections and a growth of 0.6% in overall state tax collections."

This time last year, liberals around the country were trumpeting the big fiscal comeback of the Golden State in the wake of Jerry Brown's giant tax increase — Proposition 30.

That initiative was passed by voters on Nov. 6, 2012, and it raised the personal income-tax rate on taxpayers making over $250,000 for singles and $500,000 for married couples to as high as 13% — which is the heaviest tax penalty on working and investing in the nation outside of New York City.

What was especially devious is that the tax hit was made retroactive to January 2012. Sacramento was so desperate for money that nobody seemed to mind this after-the fact taxation is really a form of confiscation.

In the short term, it worked and revenues climbed a whopping 21% because California's top 2% had to pay taxes twice in 2013 — once on their current-year income and a supplemental check to pay for the retroactive tax on income from the year before.

The Facebook IPO and the resulting capital gains revenues from that cash bonanza didn't hurt either. California's $10 billion-plus deficit magically disappeared.

The left shouted in joy that taxes on the rich don't hurt the economy and raised big bucks for the state. Sacramento politicians even joyously announced it was time for another spending spree — like alcoholics who walk around all day asking: "Is it happy hour yet?"

Will this state's lawmakers ever learn? For three decades now, no state has seen the boom and bust fiscal cycles that California has, and that's because of the progressive tax system.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials...-state.htm