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Economic Growth is Solid, Just Not as Strong as You Think

May 7, 2019

In July, the current U.S. economic expansion will become the longest on record and there have been a record 103 consecutive months of uninterrupted job growth.  Not counting the distorting effects of the hiring (and then letting go) of over 411,000 temporary workers on the U.S. Census back in 2009-2010 it would have been 110 consecutive months of job growth.  A similar effect will occur in 2019 and 2020 as the Census Bureau begins hiring temporary Census workers this year and will lay off the workers later in 2020.  You can look forward to a lot of misinterpretation of the job growth numbers in the presidential election year of 2020.

The U.S. economy is strong, but as I argued in my previous post, not as strong as the first estimate of QI GDP growth (3.2%) suggests.  In that post I noted the one-off contributors (inventory builds, lower imports, higher defense spending) to above potential GDP in the first quarter of 2019.  In this post I highlight two employment trends that indicate (to me at least) the U.S. economy is not growing as rapidly as recent reports suggest.

First, growth in aggregate hours worked in the economy is slowing, despite strong gains in job growth.  Aggregate hours worked is a function of both job growth and the number of hours worked each week and the latter has shrunk a bit, offsetting some of the gains in employment.  Aggregate hours worked is related to GDP growth because the more hours worked, the more output the U.S. economy produces.

The growth in aggregate hours worked plus productivity growth is a good surrogate measure of trends in GDP growth. Growth in aggregate hours worked plus growth in productivity (how much each worker produces), at a minimum, will tell you whether GDP growth is accelerating or decelerating.  When the average number of hours worked each week is factored into job growth, April job growth looks much more like 100,000 or less, than 263,000.  This makes sense because productivity growth in the first quarter was initially estimated at 3.4%, a remarkably high rate given that annual productivity growth has averaged about 1% for a decade and the combination of 263,000 job growth and 3.4% productivity growth would imply a very high GDP growth (higher than the 3.2% first quarter growth first reported but which I believe will be revised downward).  Productivity growth is notoriously difficult to calculate and count me skeptical of the 3.4% estimate for the first quarter. Still, the first estimate is the one that gets the headlines and later revisions garner less attention.

The rate of job growth is also slowing, not accelerating, as the initial April job growth estimate implies.  Again, the labor market is strong, there are more job openings than workers available to fill them.  Both of the  survey instruments used to measure employment tell a similar story of job growth that is solid but slowing.  Briefly, the payroll survey is a survey of employers in the country, it provides an estimate of the number of non-farm jobs, the average number of hours worked by employees, and the average hourly wages that they are paid.  The payroll survey does not count the self-employed or those not covered by the unemployment insurance program.  It also counts jobs, not people, so one employed person holding two jobs is counted as two jobs by the survey.  The household survey is used to calculate the unemployment rate and labor force participation.  It provides much more information about the characteristics of the employed and of job growth or job loss in a month than does the payroll (employer) survey.  The household survey counts the self-employed and those not covered by unemployment insurance and it counts an individual working more than one job as a single job for total employment purposes.

The household survey tends to be more volatile, as can be seen in the chart above, but the relevant point is that both surveys show employment growth slowing.  That does not necessarily mean a weaker U.S. economy, but rather than the economy is unable to growth because of labor constraints.  The monthly Job Growth and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) highlights this fact.  Looking at the JOLTS data released today shows that the job openings rate continues to rise much faster than the hiring rate, highlighting the growing gap between labor demand and labor supply.  The chart below shows how the gap between openings and hires has grown in just the Northeast region of the country, where labor shortages are among the most acute.

In conclusion, the U.S. economy is solid and labor markets are strong, just not as strong as recent data points suggest, and at a time when there are more downside than upside risks to the outlook.

Categories: employment, Employment Growth, job growth, U.S. economy, Workforce
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Why The Drop in Avg. Weekly Wages?

April 11, 2019

In a presentation I gave to the NH Senate Ways and Means Committee I noted two important wage trends. First, the average weekly wage of NH workers today is actually a bit lower than it was in June of 2017. This does not mean that no worker’s wages are increasing.  Rather, it reflects the mix of industry and occupational job growth in NH.  Lower productivity and wage industries have added more jobs in NH than have higher productivity/wage industries.average weekly wages

Second, the weighted average weekly wage in the industries that added jobs in 2018 was $946 while it was $1,163 in the industries that lost jobs.    But it is not accurate to suggest this implies the NH economy is somehow being “hollowed-out” of higher paying jobs.  Data from the end of 2018 showed that there where 50% more job openings in the state in occupations that require a college degree (9,522) compared to jobs that don’t require a degree (6,132) at the same time there were 60% fewer individuals looking for a job and who have a degree than those looking for a job who don’t have a degree (5,532 vs 13,380).

openings an ed

Labor shortages are significant in all industries but higher skill jobs are much harder to fill so more lower skill/wage jobs are being added while higher skill jobs go unfilled, skewing the job growth mix and lowering wage growth trends in the state.  Other contributing factors to slower average weekly wage growth in include a small decline in the average number of hours worked per week by employees in many industries.

Categories: job growth, Uncategorized, wages
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Not So Fast on NH’s Job Growth

March 14, 2019

The monthly payroll employment report gets a lot of attention. The monthly estimates are based on a survey sample of employers (differing from the monthly survey of households that is the source of unemployment and labor force estimates). Prior year monthly payroll estimates are revised early each year as more complete data (than the sample survey) are analyzed.  For a number of reasons (including the fact that newer firms are slow to get included in the survey) NH’s employment estimates more often than not have shown stronger (than first reported) job growth rates. Not this year. The new benchmark numbers have cut the state’s annualized job growth by more than half (to below 1%). The chart below shows the year-over-year growth rate in private sector employment in NH is about 1% (including government employment shows a slightly slower rate of job growth 0.8%).

Benchmark revisions

Early in 2018 I forecast NH’s job growth for 2018 would be about 0.6% (based on labor force constraints – not a weaker economy) and for several months I have been issuing a mea culpa for what looked like a significantly inaccurate employment growth forecast. While my sagacity is less challenged than I originally thought, I was more comfortable with NH’s employment trends when it was.

Categories: Employment Growth, job growth, Labor Force, NH Economy, Uncategorized
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Business is Aging Faster Than the Population

August 24, 2017

The U.S. economy is in a constant state of churn. New businesses are being created while existing businesses quit or fail. This dynamic process can be disruptive as new technologies, firms, and industries replace older ones, but it is not destructive, it enables increases in productivity and spurs economic growth. In a dynamic economy with lots of churning more productive firms drive out less productive ones, new entrants disrupt incumbents, and workers are better matched with firms. A dynamic economy constantly forces labor and capital to be put to better, more productive uses. Historically the dynamism of the U.S. economy is an important ingredient that distinguished our country from many slower growth (or stagnating) industrial economies. New Hampshire and the New England region have been especially dependent on economic dynamism as the region typically loses industries to regions or nations that have lower business costs once industries mature and become more standardized. High rates of new business starts fuel dynamic economies. Unfortunately in NH and in all other states the rate of new business starts is in long-term decline.

For most of the past few decades far more businesses in NH and most states were started then either quit or failed. More recently, the gap between a large number of business starts and a smaller number of quits or failures has been narrowing. Briefly, during the great recession, more businesses quit or failed in NH and the U.S. than were started.

New Firms and Exits

Except for an uptick during the “great recession,” business quits or failures have occurred at a pretty consistent rate over the past several decades. What has narrowed the gap between the number of new firms and the number of quits and failures has been a decline in the rate of new business starts in New Hampshire and the nation. The chart below shows that new firms (less than one-year old) accounted for less than 7 percent of all New Hampshire firms in 2014, down from 15 percent in 1988. A similar decline occurred in the country as a whole.

New Firms as a % of all Firms

The decline in economic dynamism implied by lower rates of business starts is contributing to our nation’s slower (by historical standards) productivity growth. Although labor force constraints are a primary culprit, lower rates of new business starts also contribute to slower employment growth, as fewer new business replace those business that quit or fail.

A recent study by Dun & Bradstreet American Express and recent data released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that larger businesses have been creating jobs at a faster rate than small businesses (less than 20 employees) in recent years, including in NH.  A very good business reporter in NH asked for my thoughts on these findings for an article he was writing.  In the article I note that the decline in entrepreneurial activity was a more important factor explaining slower job growth among smaller firms than was business size.  The age of businesses is an “intervening” variable between the apparent relationship between size of businesses and job growth, as new business typically start small. Simply comparing the percentage of jobs added by smaller and larger firms in NH would miss the job growth implications (among the small business category) of the declining rate of new business starts. New business starts account for a significant percentage of job creation in any year and a decline in business starts hurts job growth among  the category of small (under 20 employees) businesses.   The chart below shows that new firms less than one-year old accounted for about 8 percent of all private sector jobs in NH in 1984, by 2014 that percentage was down to 3 percent, a more than 60 percent decline.  From over 30,000 jobs at startups in the mid-1980s, the number of employees at startups averaged less than 18,000 between 2012 and 2014.

Jobs and % of Jobs

Today it is impossible to enter any analysis of the economy that isn’t interpreted through some ideological lens. Making it easier for entrepreneurs to start and operate a business without excessive regulatory burdens and allowing entrepreneurs to keep more of the rewards of their risk taking may seem like an ideological prescription but it just makes sense to incent more new business formations.  However, a bigger problem may be that too often regulations, laws and the political process favor older, more established technologies, businesses, and industries and look to protect and preserve the past rather than enable future technologies and industries.

Economic cycles produce temporary declines in entrepreneurial activity.  Recessions don’t make it easy to start a business but the nation’s longer-term decline in entrepreneurial activity spans economic cycles. One of the more troubling aspects of recessions is that by reducing startups and killing-off many younger firms they shrink the pool of new business from which the next generation of growth companies could emerge.  Younger firms that survive for a number of years tend to grow faster than older firms so a smaller number of new and surviving firms impede future job growth and make it harder to recover from recessions. By impeding business starts for several years (well after the recession ended) the less visible but longer-term impact of the “great recession” will be a smaller generation of the next growth companies.

Still, structural factors in the economy are more problematic for longer-term trends in business starts.  Primary among them is demographics.  There has been a lot of attention focused (often inaccurately) on the demographics of NH’s population but not enough on the demographics of its business population, even though the two are related.  Just as declining birth rates in NH’s population is the primary factor accounting for the aging of the state’s population (not the movement of young people out of the state), a decline in the rate of new business formations is rapidly aging the population of NH businesses.  In fact, the population of NH’s businesses is aging faster than is the state’s population, potentially reducing the economic dynamism that characterized the state’s vibrant economy during much of the 1980s and 1990s.  With an increasing percentage of the state’s workforce above age 50, entrepreneurial risk taking can be expected to slow and as the chart below shows, the percentage of businesses in NH that have been in business for more than 15 years rose rapidly between 2003 and 2014 (the most recent year for which data is available).

Aging of Business

Millenials are a generation that is larger than the baby boom generation and as they become established in the working world they could reverse the trend of declining entrepreneurism.  But today individuals are changing jobs at ever lower rates, suggesting a tendency to prefer security over opportunity and risk.  Millennials are also a generation that is burdened by higher debt levels when they enter the work world, that delays or eschews homebuying, marriage and having children, will they be a generation of risk takers that revive entrepreneurism in NH and the nation?  I hope so because a dynamic, high productivity U.S. and NH economy depend on it.

Categories: Demographics, Entrepreneur, Small Business, Uncategorized
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Not With a Bang But With a Whimper

July 26, 2016

The U.S. economy is currently in its 86 month of an economic expansion that began in the summer of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the organization that officially dates U.S. business cycles. If the expansion lasts another seven months (as it will), it will be the third longest economic expansion in our nation’s history, trailing only the 120 month expansion from 1991 to 2001 and the 106 month expansion from  1961 to 1969.

The probability of recession in the next six months is low but the business cycle hasn’t been repealed, another recession will occur and almost certainly sometime before the end of 2019.  It’s just that none of the excesses – wage and price growth, high energy prices, inflationary pressures, inflated asset values, etc.- that have preceded past recession are much apparent in today’s economy and there aren’t signs that any are imminent.  What will make the next recession unique in the post WWII era is that it may very well occur before the nation has fully recovered from the previous recession, despite how long the current recovery has lasted.  “Fully recovered” here means that the actual output of the nation’s economy (GDP) reaches its potential output (for a brief explanation of actual and potential output of the economy see this Congressional Budget Office publication). This is somewhat akin to feeling the effects of a hangover in the morning despite not having enjoyed the celebration the night before.  Unlike the last recession, or most recessions, the next one may not begin with a bang but rather with a whimper.

No expansion can last forever; the U.S. and the NH economies are showing signs of slowing so it is difficult for me to believe that the nation can avoid slipping into recession sometime during the first term of our next president.  If that President is named Clinton it will most likely mean a one-term presidency as three consecutive terms for an incumbent party (relatively rare in itself) along with a recession in the third term (unless is happens very early in her term allowing sufficient time for growth prior to 2020) would almost certainly result in the nation looking for a change in the party controlling the White House.  If the President is named Trump he will no doubt blame the recession on the past administration and that may help give him a pass in 2020, but a recession will challenge his claim as someone who knows how to create jobs, while his penchant for populist and nationalistic themes aren’t generally viewed as monetary and fiscal policies effective in combating a recession.  His administration’s and his personal  response to the recession might determine his fate (does anyone else remember the images of the first, single-term, President Bush zooming around in his cigarette boat off the coast of Maine while the U.S. was in the middle of the 1990-91 recession?).

The past two months have been marked by one very bad and one very good month for job growth in the nation and in NH.  I  advocate looking at three months of job growth numbers in discerning employment growth trends and a prudent man would wait for the release of the nation’s July job growth numbers on August 5th before making any proclamations about the direction of the U.S. or NH economy.  But a prudent man doesn’t write this blog and I am comfortable knowing that when you right too early it often seems like you are wrong so here are a few of the more accessible  indicators that I believe suggest slower economic growth moving forward.  There are others but jobs and revenues are what interest policymakers most so they are highlighted here.

  • The rate of private sector job growth has slowed.
  • The number of industries that are adding jobs versus the number shedding jobs (the employment diffusion index) has declined.
  • Help wanted advertising is declining.
  • Nationally, state corporate income tax collections appear to have peaked.

Slowing Private Employment Growth

Recognizing that there is always some level of unemployment in the economy, the nation and NH are at or very near “full employment,” making  job gains harder to obtain.  Full employment in the latter stages of recovery is the most obvious rationale for slower job growth going forward.  As the chart below shows, growth in private sector employment nationally is still solid but has been trending downward for some time while growth in NH accelerated in 2015 but appears to have peaked in early 2016.

private sector job growth

The Breadth of Job Gains Narrows

I use a 13 industry private employment diffusion index to assess the breadth of job growth across the private sector economy.  When more industries are adding jobs than are shedding jobs, the index is below .50 and the greater the number of industries adding jobs compared to those shedding jobs the higher is the index number.  The chart below shows that both the national and NH diffusion index have dropped, with NH’s decline of particular concern as it now stands below .50 on a three month moving average basis. NH’s employment numbers are often substantially revised so this index value may not be as bad as it appears here but the U.S. number still points to a slowdown.

diffusion index

Historically, significant declines in NH’s employment diffusion index have signaled turning points in the state’s labor market. The relationship between NH’s diffusion index value and the rate of year-over-year private sector job growth four months later is strong (a correlation of .82).  A simple linear regression of the NH diffusion index on private sector employment growth suggests the last two quarters of 2016 will see private employment growth in NH of about 0.6% on an annualized basis compared to the current rate of growth of about 2.0%.  Clearly not in danger of recession but definitely a slowdown.

diffusion index and emp growth

Fewer Help Wanted Ads

Nationally and in NH the number of help wanted ads has declined in recent months.  In NH the relationship between the three month moving average of help wanted ads and job growth in the quarter that follows is strong (R= .80).

NH US Help Wanted

Growth in State Corporate Income Tax Collections Has Peaked

Nationally, the rate of growth in state corporate income taxes is declining (chart below).

corporate tax revenues

The chart shows that compared to all states combined, the growth in NH’s business tax revenues is increasing as the growth rate nationally declines.  This despite the fact that NH’s private sector employment growth has been at about the U.S. average over the past year.  What is different in NH is the inclusion of NH’s Business Enterprise Tax revenue along with NH’s tax on corporate profits in the chart above.  Both private employment and wage growth have accelerated in NH over the past year. Wages and salaries paid by a business are the largest portion of the Business Enterprise Tax base so even as business profits grow more slowly, business tax revenues can be buoyed by substantial increases in overall wages and salaries.  While not a measure of the payroll of NH businesses, wage and salary income increased in NH by 8.6 percent between QI 2015 and QI 2016 compared to 5.3 percent nationally.  That increase has helped boost Business Enterprise Tax revenue and overall business tax revenue in NH in a way that it cannot in other states (most other states would see the change in individual income tax revenue).  The trend is depicted in the chart below that shows the growth rate of the annualized business profits portion of NH’s business tax revenue has slipped while the growth rate of the portion more dependent on wages and salaries has seen accelerated growth.  A slowing growth rate in private employment in NH implies slower growth in wages and salaries and business tax revenues in the state growing more similarly to the pattern among states nationally.  This will occur just as a budget surplus and strong overall revenue growth have increased pressures for additional state spending that had been muted by several years of relatively weak business tax and overall revenue growth.

NH business tax revenue growth

It is impossible to predict monthly payroll employment growth for a small state like NH (or any state for that matter) but I predict employment growth of about 120,000 jobs nationally in July but anything between 100,000 and 150,000 would be in line with the indicators highlighted in this post and consistent with a gradual slowing of economic growth nationally and in NH. Not soon but at some point that slowing will become a recession and that will be the reward for winning the White House and for new and incumbent occupants of statehouses across the nation.

Categories: Election, Employment Growth, Help Wanted, NH Economy, Recession, U,S, Economy
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What the Unemployment Rate Doesn’t Tell Policymakers Can Hurt Us

June 22, 2016

Last week the NH Labor Market Information Bureau released the NH jobs report for May and as usual all of the attention focused on NH’s low (2.7 percent) unemployment rate.  The more significant story was the April to May decline of 4,000 payroll jobs in the state.

Private sector jobs in NH were lower by 3,400 in May, the largest one month decline since 2008 – with one exception – a month in 2014 when workers at the Market Basket grocery chain left their jobs in support of their ousted CEO.  May 2016 job losses were an out sized drop for any month of seasonally adjusted data (a decline of that size would more likely be seen in the not seasonally adjusted data where large changes in employment occur annually during certain months of the year).  I am inclined to attribute some, but not all, of the drop in NH’s May employment to problems with seasonal adjustments and other statistical issues.  Still, the May data marks the first time since 2011 that a three month moving average of private sector employment growth in NH has been negative.

3 mos avg change in private emp

For some added context on the NH payroll employment numbers I wait for a release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, usually about one week after NH releases its state’s job numbers.  That monthly report provides employment, unemployment, labor force and other labor market data for all 50 states.  Here is a bit of the context provided in the June 20th release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“In May 2016, four states had statistically significant over-the-month decreases in nonfarm payroll employment and three states and the District of Columbia had significant increases. The job losses were in Tennessee (-13,400), Michigan (-12,700), New Hampshire (-4,000), and Montana (-2,700). In percentage terms, Montana and New Hampshire had the largest declines (-0.6 percent each), followed by Tennessee (-0.5 percent) and Michigan (-0.3 percent).”

The term “statistically significant” decline in employment is important.  Twenty seven states experienced declines in nonfarm payroll employment in May but in only four of those states was the decline deemed “statistically significant,” meaning that the decline was large enough for the BLS to be at least 90% certain that the change in employment did not fall within the margin for error of the employer survey on which the employment estimates are based.

May emp change

It is not wise to be too concerned with one month’s job report.  Whether the  May job growth number is real or illusory and the product of statistical anomalies, the numbers for NH still should have attracted more attention (than a 0.1% uptick in the unemployment rate) from the media and especially from lawmakers and public officials.  The May job growth number is certainly more noteworthy than a slight uptick in the state’s unemployment rate that was the focus of most media reports.   As I noted in my previous post, employment growth nationally and in NH is going to slow and one bad month is not reason to panic.  But NH’s year-over-year percentage increase in private sector employment took a big hit with the May jobs report and the state’s ranking among states on private sector job growth did as well.  Private employment growth in NH has been on a solid pace for more than a year but with the May data NH moved from the top third to the bottom half among states on year-over-year private sector job growth.

Ranking Private Sector Job Growth

Public sector job cuts continue to be a drag on NH’s total nonfarm job growth, shedding about 2,500 jobs between May of 2015 and May of 2016, by far the largest percentage decline of any state in the nation.

Change in Govt Jobs May 15 to May 16

Still, while the May jobs report was troubling, initial unemployment claims are a very good leading indicator of economic activity and they remain subdued in NH and have yet to suggest a significant downtown in either the U.S. or NH economies.  The May jobs report also showed a continuation of the recent trend of solid labor force growth.

IUC

Implications for State Revenue

My primary concern about the May jobs report for NH, and with monthly jobs reports for NH in general, is how little attention payroll employment numbers get from policymakers and how much attention and importance is given to the state’s unemployment rate.  The state will begin crafting its two-year budget this fall and solid revenue gains over the past year and a budget surplus are building pressure for substantial increases in state spending.  This isn’t a commentary on the merits of specific spending proposals (I will save that for later posts) just a caution that the fiscal environment into which spending proposals will be entered can change and the need to recognize that change as far in advance as possible.  I would feel more comfortable about the upcoming budget process if NH’s weak May jobs number, and the possibility that weaker job growth will continue, were at least acknowledged by policymakers, state agencies, and the media.  I want to know that there is someone in NH’s wheelhouse focused on the horizon and not on our wake.   I understand the appeal of the unemployment rate as a single, intuitive metric that summarizes economic conditions but the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator of labor market and economic trends.  For policymakers and anyone who needs to assess the near-term economic outlook, using the unemployment rate as a guide is a bit like driving using the rear view mirror.   The unemployment rate is an important economic indicator that says a lot about current economic conditions, it is just not that useful for forecasting purposes. Moreover, NH’s demographics (fewer individuals in demographic groups that typically have high rates of unemployment) mean that the state will almost always have a relatively lower unemployment rate than the U.S..  Too frequently that leads lawmakers and others in NH to assume the state’s economy is performing better than it actually is and better than the U.S. economy.

Business taxes are a big reason that NH revenues have outperformed expectations this fiscal year, accounting for almost two-thirds (or $61.4 million) of the $99.4 increase in traditional taxes and fees over FY2015 during the first 11 months of fiscal year 2016.  Focusing on changes in private sector  payroll employment and wage growth is especially important for lawmakers in the Granite State and especially important as we head toward a budget making year.  As a lagging indicator of economic activity NH’s unemployment rate will remain low, even as the economy slows.

Emp Growth and Business Taxes

If lawmakers focus too much on NH’s unemployment rate in their assessment of state revenue trends they risk delaying recognition of turning points in the NH economy and thus changes in state revenue trends.  Private sector employment and payroll growth slow before significant changes occur in the state’s unemployment rate and private sector employment growth is a better indicator  of trends in NH business tax revenue than is the state’s unemployment rate.  So the next time a public official brags about NH’s unemployment rate, ask him or her how many jobs were added in the state during the last month.

Categories: job growth, NH Economy, Uncategorized, Unemployment
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Presidential Campaign Impacts on U.S. Job Growth and Implications for NH

June 9, 2016

The May U.S. jobs report with downward revisions to the March and April job numbers was bad, not bad enough that you should start stocking canned goods and bottled water in your basement but bad nevertheless.  The impact of 35,000 striking Verizon Corp. workers on the May numbers is cited as one explanation for the weak report but there were 25,000 temporary workers hired by the company during the strike so the overall impact was actually fairly small.  Seasonal adjustment factors (the statistical procedure used to smooth regular annual fluctuations in employment data throughout the year– things like Christmas hiring, summer employment of youth etc.) seem to be more problematic in recent years and that may also be a contributor.   Of course it is possible that hiring was just weak, plain and simple.  Hiring will continue to weaken, I just don’t think job growth is really as weak, and the slowdown as rapid, as the May jobs report suggests.

Presidential Campaigns Appear to Impact Job Growth

The first rule of politics is to forget all of the rules of economics and that is more problematic now that the national political climate seems to increasingly influence real economic variables. Think of the impact that debt ceiling debates and government shutdown threats have had on economic activity recently.  With almost no focus in the current presidential election on sound economics and economic policies it is easy to see how politics could  contribute to a weak May jobs report (when the empirical evidence doesn’t provide a clear explanation for economic events it is hard to go wrong blaming politics and politicians).  But there is some evidence that presidential elections can temporarily depress job growth.  The uncertainty of a presidential election, especially in a year without an incumbent, and the people and policies that candidates may employ in their administration can give pause to businesses investment and hiring decisions. The uncertainty surrounding future economic and fiscal policies in a presidential election year should arguably be greater several months prior to the election rather than a month or two when the election outcome and policy directions become clearer.  I compared average private sector job growth (government employment should not be affected) in the U.S. during the months of June-August in presidential election years, to the average job growth from September (of the year prior to the election) to May (of the election year).   Since 2000, in each presidential election year the average private sector job growth from June-August significantly lagged average job growth over the prior nine month (Sept-May) period. The pattern held in 2008 but because the U.S. economy was in free fall for other reasons it is not included here.   In years with no presidential election this generally was not the case (years such as 2002, 2003 and 2007 when the U.S. was entering or exiting a recession are exceptions).

UncertaintyJob growth in NH is going to slow regardless of political uncertainties given existing labor force constraints.  NH is essentially at full employment and the nation is close. The longer a recovery lasts the greater are the chances that job growth will slow.  Still,  there are more uncertainties regarding the presidential candidates and the policies that could affect business and the economy in this election than is typical in a presidential year so it is not unrealistic to think that politics is already affecting hiring and investment decisions.

Will New Hampshire Follow the National Trend?

State level job growth numbers for May will be released June 17th.  In a small state like NH monthly job growth can be especially volatile. Up or down  conclusions about a state’s economy should not be drawn from a single month of employment data.  A three month trend in private sector employment is a better reflection of the direction of a state’s economy and by that metric NH has been on a roll.  The chart below shows that after several years of below national average private sector job growth, the pace of job growth in NH is now at a level equal to the U.S. average.  Moreover, the growth trend for NH has accelerated while the rate of private sector job growth in the U.S. has decelerated.  The rate of private sector job growth NH is going to slow nonetheless,  just as it has in the nation overall.

private sector job growthI don’t think the private sector job growth trend has gotten enough attention in NH.  Many (including me at times) focused on several years of NH’s subpar total non-farm (including government) employment growth.  But as I have noted in prior posts, the percentage drop in government jobs in NH is among the largest of any state in the nation, masking some of the strength of hiring trends in NH’s private sector.  The chart below shows how both private sector and state and local government employment in NH have grown since each sector’s pre-recession peak.  Private sector employment in NH peaked in February of 2008 and after shedding 6% of those jobs during the recession NH has regained that many plus an additional 3%.  State and local government employment in NH did not peak until April of 2010.  It takes a couple of years for property valuations to reflect economic conditions so the largest declines in property valuations – and thus local revenues and employment- occurred as the recession had ended.  State and local government employment in NH is about 8.5% lower than at its peak, with local government shedding about 6,800 jobs and state government about 1,000 jobs.

public vs private sector growth

Labor Market Response in NH May Be Too Late

For too long in NH private sector job growth remained consistent at a subpar rate despite a large increase in help wanted ads in the state.  A combination of slow or no labor force growth and a mismatch between job opportunities and the skills of job seekers were the causes and not a fundamental erosion of NH’s business climate as I argued in this post.

NH US Help Wanted

But now help wanted ads in NH and the nation are slipping (chart above) and while the recovery isn’t over we are getting better more slowly.  Unfortunately, that is occurring just as the labor market conditions –  low unemployment, rising wages, and signs that NH is once again seeing net in-migration from other states, are all resulting in a more rapid expansion of the NH labor force, the key ingredient wages

the state has lacked in recent years to achieve a faster pace of  job growth.

NH Labor force growth

A Bumpy Ride for the Remainder of 2016

I am frequently in error but rarely in doubt and in this post  last fall I was confident NH would again exceed the U.S. rate of employment growth (it is still possible but not likely) and that NH would see a 2.5% increase in total employment in 2016 (that is not going to happen). In fairness, private sector job growth has been on a more than 2% growth pace for the year and I did include two caveats in my forecast last fall: first that labor force growth in NH would have to accelerate (in part due to a resumption in net in-migration to the state) and while the labor force is once again growing in NH,  it is at a pace that may not sustain the 2% plus growth that NH’s private sector is currently on.  Second, the decline in government jobs would have to abate – it hasn’t.  A month ago at a presentation at a local community bank I downgraded my job growth forecast for NH in 2016 from 2.5% to 1.8%.  With more recent national economic data – including the May jobs data and March/April revisions, readings from my PolEcon NH Leading Economic Index, along with the uncertainties produced by the nation’s political climate, I now believe the rate of growth will be just 1.2 to1.4 percent.

Categories: job growth, Labor Force, NH Economy, presidential election, Uncategorized
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“A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage”

September 28, 2015

I say this with all of the sagacity of Herbert Hoover who is quoted above: New Hampshire will once again exceed the U.S.  rate of employment growth in 2015 and will have the highest growth rate in the Northeast.  It has been our state’s decade long nightmare to have sub-par job growth after becoming accustomed to superior job growth for much of the prior three decades.  After several years of playing the pessimist it is nice to be able to argue that New Hampshire will once again be a leader in economic performance. Private sector job growth has accelerated and NH is moving up in the state rankings over the past twelve months. A steep decline in energy prices is helping the state by lowering the price of fuel oil, gasoline, and natural gas, lowering some costs for businesses and increasing disposable income of households in a state and region burdened by higher energy costs. Energy producing states are feeling the brunt of price declines. A year ago North Dakota could not be displayed on the graph below without ruining the scale of the Y axis, now they, along with Alaska, Wyoming, Oklahoma and other energy producing states are the laggards. Energy isn’t the reason NH had sub-par job growth but a reduction in energy prices is helping accelerate growth in the state.

Gottlob 2015 Savings Bank of Walpole Presentation

The quality of job growth is also improving, with jobs in better paying industries increasing more than jobs in industries that tend to have fewer well-paying jobs. The troubling exception is in professional, scientific, and technical industries where there has been no job growth.

job quality

Private sector job growth is accelerating despite the fact that help-wanted ads have declined. I believe this indicates that more jobs are being filled, lowering the number of unfilled jobs, and thus help-wanted ads, even as job growth is increasing. One exception may be jobs in professional, scientific, and technical fields which comprise the largest category of help-wanted ads but where industries that employ the largest number of these occupations appear to have had no net job growth over the past year. A large number of these jobs appear to be going unfilled and indicate a technical and professional labor supply problem in the state.

help wanted

I expect New Hampshire to add about 16,000 non-farm jobs in 2016, a rate of about 2.5% annual growth. This is a rate higher than any in the past decade and comes with a few caveats. First, energy prices must remain stable and relatively low, this I think is a lock. NH faces more upside potential (things will get better) than downside risk on the energy front. Second, the pace of government job cuts has to slow or reverse. The reduction in local government employment has been a significant drag on overall employment growth in the state, subtracting about 0.5% from the state’s total non-farm job growth rate. And stop please, anyone who thinks cutting local government jobs is a reason for accelerating private sector job growth. Third and most importantly, NH’s labor force has to grow at rates above the past few years. I have recently written about the labor force being the most significant constraint on the NH economy, and largely responsible for NH’s sub-par job growth (as opposed to some fundamental erosion of the business climate). One thing is clear, labor force growth will not come from just absorbing the “slack” in NH’s labor market. The chart below shows that NH is essentially at full employment with the exception of individuals who are working part-time for economic reasons (that is they would like to work full-time but can’t get full-time employment). There will always be some level of unemployment regardless of the strength of the economy, both for frictional reasons as people change careers or jobs, as well as structural reasons as the economy and industries change and the demand for different skills and occupations shifts. There are now  more people working part-time for economic reasons in NH than there are unemployed individuals. Three quarters of part-time workers in NH work part-time by choice according to my analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Population Survey data. The remaining 25 thousand or so part-timers wanting full-time work shows an equal number of men and women, spread fairly evenly over the age distribution between 22 and 64. More than one-third have at least an associate’s degree and 24% a bachelor’s degree. This source of labor can be more fully utilized boosting overall output but they are already working and don’t expand the size of the labor force. Discouraged workers number less than 1,500 with about that number again who are conditionally discouraged but would enter the workforce for the right job. They are predominately male (80%) and older (75% age 45+) and overall have lower levels of educational attainment (although a percentage of college grads is included).

unemployement rate

Hope for expanding the labor force in NH comes mostly from a return to net in-migration from other states. NH’s primary source of for increasing the skill and talent of its labor force for three decades, this source became a net negative factor in recent years. Data on this comes with a long lag but some unofficial, non-government statistics suggest that in-migration is returning and accelerating in some parts of the state, supplying an influx of talent and additional labor that will contribute to expanding differential rates of growth in the state. Areas of the state that have seen labor force growth in recent years have been adding jobs at a much faster rate than the remainder of the state and is one reason why I advocate giving as much attention to making a community, region, or state “attractive to individuals and families”  as making them attractive to business. The Seacoast will continue to lead in job growth because of the region’s ability to attract “talent” and expand its labor force. Job growth in the Manchester region is picking up and I expect a stronger performance for that region in 2016, while the Nashua region will continue to lag.

labor forcde growth

Categories: forecast, NH Economy
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The Business Tax Discussion NH Should Have

June 23, 2015

What to do about New Hampshire’s business taxes is near the top of lawmaker’s agenda in the Granite State. Many policymakers are concerned that the business tax climate is contributing to a fundamental erosion of New Hampshire’s business climate that is reflected in lackluster employment and revenue growth. Reports that NH has recently outperformed  New England and the U.S. in gross state product (GSP) growth highlight the disconnect that can occur between economic metrics of output (GSP) and measures that more directly affect individuals in their daily lives, such as employment and wage growth. Better than regional or national average growth in GSP is good but state-level GSP numbers are relatively imprecise and should not obscure the fact that employment, wages, and state revenue growth have all been disappointing in NH by the standards of the past few decades. Sustained, disappointing employment and revenue growth since the end of the recession have prompted well-meaning lawmakers in NH to consider a number of policies to accelerate growth in the state.

NH and US emp Growth

Business Taxes Seen as Key

Business tax rates impact business decisions but I don’t believe they are the fundamental factor behind NH’s disappointing economic performance. Lawmakers should consider “what to do about business taxes” but that consideration should go well beyond current tax rates and regulations. Lawmakers should also be concerned with the long-term prospects (revenue yield) of business taxes because business taxes are the largest source of general revenue supporting state government.  New Hampshire’s fiscal structure is fundamentally tied to the performance of the state’s business taxes.  As importantly, lawmakers should be concerned with how NH’s business taxes will interact with key economic and demographic trends to influence the state’s future economic performance. The chart below shows combined quarterly business profits and business enterprise tax collections on an annualized basis and illustrates that nearly six years post-recession and more than seven past their high mark, business tax revenues in NH have not fully recovered. Some of the failure of revenues to rebound following the recession is a result of changes in the state’s business tax rules and some is the result of total private sector wages and salaries (the largest portion of the BET tax base) that declined in  2009 and 2010. Whatever the reason it highlights concerns about the viability of business taxes as the primary source of support for state government. I don’t believe that either raising or lowering rates is likely to improve the performance of business tax revenue enough to alleviate those concerns or even result in revenue gains that match those seen in the first half of the 2000s.

NH Business Tax Revenue

The Business Tax Burden in NH

Using tax rates to measure burdens over time is not a true measure of the impact that business taxes have on companies. Comparing state business tax climates using rates is problematic because of the various provisions of each state’s tax code that affect nominal rates. Here I assess business tax “burdens” using an economic measure – business tax collections as a percentage of private sector gross state product (GSP). This metric documents the state’s business tax burden placed on the total value of private sector goods and services produced in a state. Even using this measure of “burden” is problematic because it does not include all of the taxes, fees, and charges that may apply to a business in each state. Nevertheless, when it comes to addressing the primary sources of tax burden and the ‘headline taxes” that are identified with a state’s business climate, it is a better measure than looking at just business tax rates.

As the chart below shows, as a percentage of GSP, business tax burdens have nearly doubled in New Hampshire since the early 1990’s. Much of that is the result of the addition of the Business Enterprise Tax in 1993, as well as increases in the BET’s rate from 0.25% to 0.50% in 1999, to 0.75% in 2001. But some is also the result of increases in the rate of the business profits tax (BPT) which began the time period shown at 8.0% (from FY 92 through FY 93), dropped to 7.5% in FY 94 and hit a low of 7.0% (from FY 95 through FY 99) and finally rose to its current rate of 8.5% in FY 02. Importantly, the chart also shows that business tax revenue as a percentage of private sector gross state product has fallen since the recession and is now at a level seen at the beginning of the last decade. Again, changes in rules and a decline in wages and salaries both play a role in that decline. For comparison purposes the chart also shows the percentage of GSP that corporate income taxes take in Massachusetts, however, as noted, a number of other taxes are applied to or affect business in addition to corporate income taxes.

Taxes as a pct of GSP

What’s Ailing the NH Economy?

I don’t believe there has been a substantial, fundamental erosion of the ‘business climate” in NH. Slow labor force growth is by far the largest factor contributing to New Hampshire having gone from a leader to a laggard in job growth. That labor force issue is much broader and more complicated than the simplistic and too often noted “young people moving out-of-state.” The chart below shows that labor force growth has slowed more in NH than nationally in recent decades. Where once NH enjoyed a significant advantage in labor force growth, the state now lags the nation as a whole. Above average labor force growth is what allowed NH to have exceptional job growth in the 1980’s and much of the 1990’s.

lf growth 3 time periods

Labor force growth (largely via in-migration of skilled, educated individuals and families from other states) provided NH with a resource advantage for decades. Slow labor force growth is now capping the amount job growth that is possible in the state. Some believe the state’s labor force would experience stronger growth if more job opportunities existed in NH and that simply reducing business taxes will make that happen. While that is true to a degree, today, businesses rarely locate where there is not clearly a sufficient supply of needed labor. A sharp rise in help-wanted advertising in NH in recent years even as private sector employment growth has remained relatively constant and disappointing (chart below) shows that in the near-term at least, demand for labor does not necessarily increase its supply.  Significantly, the chart also shows that after a rapid rise in help wanted advertisements that was not accompanied by a noticeable increase in the rate of private sector job growth, help wanted ads have begun to decline in what may be a sign that employers, because of labor supply constraints, are increasingly looking  elsewhere for labor.

help wanted june 2015

The demand for labor does generally increase the supply of labor but when the supply is growing slowly everywhere (especially in the Northeast where NH has typically attracted much of its increase in labor force), supply will respond accordingly. Increasingly businesses follow labor rather than the other way around and they do not rely on their demand to increase labor supply.  Looking ahead, population and demographic projections show that both nationally and in NH, the working age population (defined here as age 18-64) will show almost no growth over the next 25 years. Competition for labor among businesses will become more intense and to keep and attract a labor force businesses will have to offer more than just the promise of a paycheck. I would argue that states and communities will also have to offer more (in terms of amenities – natural, social, civic, cultural, and services) to attract and retain the labor force needed for employment and economic growth. Evidence of the importance of amenities to labor supply (and employment growth) can be seen in the differential employment growth between some of NH’s regions such as the Seacoast (which has had higher population, labor force, and employment growth and which has several high amenity communities) and other regions of the state.

New Hampshire can improve its business taxes and business climate but whatever reforms are enacted, alone, are not going to overcome demographic and labor force imposed constraints on employment growth in the state. Lawmakers should, however, seek to assure that business taxes do not worsen key constraints on the NH economy moving forward.

The Longer-Term Problem

NH’s combination of a traditional tax on the profits of business profits (the business profits tax or BPT), along with its “business enterprise tax” or BET (on the combined compensation, interest, and dividends paid by businesses) may well exacerbate some of the disadvantages the state’s economy will face as a result of national and state demographic trends, making it more difficult for NH to overcome key constraints on employment growth in the state.

Reducing business tax rates that many see as too high is a near-term solution to a longer-term problem. The longer-term problem is slow or no labor force growth nationally and in NH in the coming decades that will limit profit growth everywhere but which will also place additional burdens on NH businesses. The labor force problem and NH’s reliance on business taxes will present NH businesses and state government with challenges that are unique to the state.

Wages and salaries are generally lower for comparable positions in NH than they are in Massachusetts. At one time it was easy to justify that wage differential because of large differences in the cost of living between the two states. Today, the cost of living differential between the two states has narrowed and NH is considered a high cost-of-living state. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) produces a “regional price parity index” Regional Price Parities (RPPs) measure the differences in the price levels of goods and services across states for a given year. RPPs are expressed as a percentage of the overall national price level (100). As the chart below shows (apologies for the poor quality – I lifted it directly from a BEA publication), NH (seen in red) has become a high cost state (largely because of housing costs), nearly as costly as Massachusetts.

price parityIn a state (NH) with living costs that are increasingly comparable to Massachusetts, workers in NH can be expected to seek wages nearly comparable to wages available in Massachusetts. For the most part, however, NH employees do not receive wages comparable to wages in Massachusetts and that contributes to some of NH businesses inability to hire needed workers and to NH’s modest job growth, despite increased job openings in the Granite State.   It may also be a contributing factor to NH’s significant drop in its unemployment rate with only modest job growth (the unemployment rate is a residency-based measure that considers only whether or not a resident of NH has a job or not, regardless of where that job is located).  Little or no growth in the labor force in the coming decades will increase competition for workers and will put more pressure on NH businesses to narrow wage and salary differentials with other, higher-cost states, if higher-skill jobs located in NH are going to grow. The catch 22 is that higher wages increase the BET liability of businesses at the same time they can reduce profitability (if productivity isn’t rising along with wages). A growing disconnect between the profitability of businesses in NH and the tax burden placed on them is not likely to be an incentive for businesses to compete for labor in a era when it is ever more scarce.

Higher wages would not be a problem as long as productivity increases justify wage growth. When workers produce more they should see higher wages. Productivity growth has been modest over the past decade and shows little sign of accelerating. Thus increasing wages will likely mean slower profit growth for businesses in NH and elsewhere. I think we have seen the high mark nationally for corporate profitability for some time. But in NH, the higher wages needed to attract labor will also increase the business enterprise tax (BET) liability of companies. If profitability is indeed more modest because of faster wage growth and modest productivity growth, the BET liability of NH businesses relative to their business profits tax (BPT) liability will increase. An ad valorem tax on a resource (labor) in short supply with a rising price and that is paid regardless of the profitability of a business may increase (or cushion from decline) state revenue for a time but it also seems like a disincentive for businesses to pay the wages necessary to compete for labor and to hire in New Hampshire over the longer term.

New Hampshire’s tax structure has never really been a boon or an advantage for business but it has been attractive to large numbers of individuals and families over the years and it contributed to growth in the state’s labor force via inter-state migration into NH. Growth in key demographic groups within the labor force – skilled individuals with higher levels of educational attainment  and regardless of their age ( two wage-earner, college educated, married couple families with children characterized the typical inter-state migrant to NH) made New Hampshire a much more attractive place for businesses to operate. The in-migration of “talent” fueled the state’s transition to a more sophisticated, technology dependent economy. But there is less state-to-state migration everywhere today and national and regional population, demographic, and labor force growth make it much less likely that NH will continue to realize those benefits from its fiscal structure. In the coming decades as competition for labor increases because of limited growth in the labor force, stronger wage growth will be needed to attract a limited pool of labor. Taxing compensation (as NH’s BET does) will increase tax liabilities for many NH businesses even as higher wages limit their profitability.

It is time for a discussion of NH’s business taxes, but that discussion needs to involve a lot more than just tax rates, credits, and how the rules apply to publicly traded companies.

Categories: corporations, job growth, Labor Force, New Hampshire, NH, Tax Revenue
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The Locus of Economic Activity in NH is Shifting

January 21, 2014

I gave a presentation last month during which I argued that the locus of economic activity in New Hampshire is shifting to the Seacoast.  That is a provocative statement destined to offend the population centers of Manchester and Nashua and quite likely the individuals elected to represent them. Provocation isn’t my intent, it rarely is, but is often the result nevertheless.  This shift will take years to become more apparent but the evidence for its occurrence appears across a range of important economic and demographic metrics.  Over the past decade, private sector job growth in the combined Portsmouth and Dover/Rochester NECTAs** has outpaced growth in either the Manchester of Nashua NECTAs.  The Seacoast is home to only about 15% of private sector employment, but that percentage is growing.  The shift is not really about the job growth numbers because the Seacoast will always have smaller employment numbers than will the population centers of Manchester and Nashua.  It is about how so much more of the innovation and transformation that is occurring among businesses and industries in the state’s economy is occurring in the Seacoast region.

NH Regional job growth

Alone, the increase in private employment in the Seacoast relative to the Manchester and Nashua regions would not be that significant.  Rather, it is the increasing share of innovation and growth in key industries that the Seacoast is capturing that indicates the locus of key economic activity is shifting.  As the chart below shows, the Seacoast region has marginally increased its share of New Hampshire’s private sector employment since 2004, but it has, in relatively short time, substantially increased its share of finance and insurance industry employment, information industry employment, as well as both health care and manufacturing employment.  Annual town-level data stops in 2012 but with the coming addition of technology dependent, international companies like Safran, the manufacturing trend appears to be continuing.   The one key industry where the Seacoast has not gained share is in professional and business services.   This is a large, important, and growing sector of the New Hampshire economy.  In most states, key professional and business services firms often locate in the state’s largest city.  Major NH Law firms, engineering firms, advertising agencies, and many of the other industries that comprise this sector still seem to prefer to be centrally located and have their main offices in the state’s largest city, Manchester.  Having a main office anywhere other than  the largest city seems to signal, to some, that a business is “regional,” that it does not serve the entire state or the larger New England region. The Seacoast is also capturing a smaller share of retail employment, which is surprising given its location along two state borders.  It is not that retail is declining in the region but rather that it has grown faster elsewhere in the state.

Seacoast share of industries

Manchester and Nashua are still home to more companies in key industries than is the Seacoast and that will be true for some time, maybe always.  Still, there was a time when the Greater Nashua and Manchester areas were the technology and manufacturing center of New Hampshire and almost all important developments in manufacturing and technology industries occurred there.  These regions remain the technology leaders by numbers, but more key developments and new companies in technology and manufacturing are  occurring in the Seacoast.  The development of the Pease Tradeport into a premier location for industries of all types, along with the presence of a major research university (UNH), have played important roles in the shift.  But what is really sustaining the trend is the ability of the region to attract the talent (skilled individuals with higher levels of educational attainment) that companies in emerging, growing and higher value-added industries desperately need.   As I say far too often, brains are the most valuable resource in the 21st century.  Skilled, well-educated people have the most economic opportunities and they are the most mobile members of society.  Where they choose to locate, robust economic growth is likely to follow.  Examining Census data indicates that skilled individuals with higher levels of educational attainment have increasingly chosen to live in the Seacoast, and that has provided a key source of competitive advantage to the region.  The chart below shows how the population of individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher has changed in some NH cities over the past two decades.  The chart shows that on a percentage basis, Portsmouth and Dover, by far, had the greatest increase of individuals over the age of 25 with a bachelor’s degree among their populations.  Somersworth, although beginning with a lower concentration of individuals with a bachelor’s degree, had the next largest percentage increase in subsequent decades.  Among the largest cities in the Seacoast, only Rochester has not seen a substantial increase in its population with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Changes in Ed Attainment

If the Seacoast continues to increase its concentration of “talent,” then the locus of economic activity in the state will continue to shift toward the region.  Communities in the region continue to attract skilled individuals with higher levels of educational attainment because, to varying degrees, most have been able to provide a mix of services and social, cultural, and civic amenities, at a price more affordable than communities in other states.  But if being the “cheapest” place to live were the key, the Seacoast would not be thriving.  Rather, it is the combination of services and amenities at  relatively more affordable price (providing a good value) that has been attractive.  Many communities and regions are looking to thrive.   Like all regions in New Hampshire the Seacoast has heard, and for the most part heeded, the call for fiscal restraint (although you can never spend too little for some or too much for others), but most of its communities have looked for ways to continue to provide or increase the quality of their services and the amenities (natural, built, civic, social and cultural) they offer.  It is more difficult for urban areas to attract and retain the skilled individuals with higher levels of educational attainment that are increasingly the key to a vibrant economy because urban cities have to find ways to provide and encourage a level of services and amenities to compensate individuals for living in cities that have the problems associated with urban environments.

Most of the focus of economic development strategies is on creating policies to ensure a “good business climate.”  I think that is important and I also think NH has a pretty good business climate.  With so much concern over population and labor force growth and demographic changes in NH, more emphasis needs to be placed on creating a good “talent climate” as well as a good business climate. I don’t know that the Seacoast of NH has sought to do that but the demographic and economic data suggest they have done so regardless.   The result has been a competitive economic advantage. On a smaller and slightly different scale you can say the same thing about the Hanover/Lebanon area which serves as a nice control group to assure the importance of amenities don’t just mean having an ocean nearby.

 

** NECTA = New England City and Town Area, a grouping of towns into a connected labor market area, akin to a metropolitan or micropolitan statistical area.

Categories: economic development, Educational Attainment, job growth, NH, NH Economy
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