Magazine ranks state economy 32nd in US

 

Missouri's economy ranks 32nd among the states, Governing Magazine reported Monday.

That's down from 25th in the magazine's previous, 2013 survey.

"The results show a connection between a state's economic performance and its governor's approval ratings," reporter Louis Jacobson wrote - although neither Monday's story nor the 2013 story reported rankings for Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.

Missouri's rankings in both studies are considered to be in the middle.

"As in the 2013 rankings, we decided to focus on the top and bottom of the list because it's hard to say whether the states in the broad middle have relatively strong or weak economies," Jacobson wrote. "Our results are notable for their degree of flux. Only two of the top 10 states in 2013 - Oregon and Utah - repeated on the list in 2016.

"And only three of the bottom 10 states in 2013 - Connecticut, Mississippi and New Mexico - remained in the bottom 10 in 2016."

Several of this year's Republican governor candidates said Missouri's economy was 47th in the nation - including Eric Greitens, winner of the Aug. 2 GOP primary and now running against Democrat Chris Koster and Libertarian Cisse Spragins in the Nov. 8 general election.

Business Insider published that ranking on Aug. 3, 2015.

Jacobson's study for Governing used six variables from statistics compiled by the federal bureaus of Labor Statistics and Economic Analysis:

Each state's current unemployment rate.

The improvement in the state unemployment rate over the past year.

Each state's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015.

The percent change in real state GDP between 2014 and 2015.

The percentage growth in year-to-date increases in jobs for 2016.

The percent change in state personal income per capita, from the third quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016.

"These variables were chosen to offer a mix of static and dynamic measures of the states' overall economic performance," Jacobson wrote.

Those are very different statistics from the ones used earlier this year by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, which ranked Missouri's economy 14th among the 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

The George Mason ranking was based on the states' fiscal year 2014 comprehensive annual financial reports - the most recent available comparing all state governments - ranking their fiscal solvency using 14 metrics that assessed the states' abilities to meet short-term bills and longer-term obligations.

Nixon spokesman Scott Holste said Monday he wasn't familiar with the criteria Governing used to measure the states' economies.

But, he said: "Since 2010, Missouri employers have created more than 100,000 jobs, cutting the unemployment rate to just 4.7 percent in July 2016. That rate has remained below the national average for the past two years.

"In July, Missouri also reached a new record high for the state with 2,816,600 active jobs."

Holste pointed to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the Kauffman Foundation, showing "Missouri led the nation in new business creation, with 1,293 more businesses created in Missouri in 2013 (the most recent year for which data is available) than in 2012, an increase of more than 16 percent."

During that same period, Holste said 39 states saw a decrease in new business creation.

"Of the states that did see an increase in the number of new businesses, Missouri outperformed them dramatically - experiencing a bigger growth in new business creation than all 10 of those states combined," he said.

For the third consecutive month, Holste said, the Mid-America Business Conditions Index survey recently reported that the state's Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) - which measures the economic health of the manufacturing sector - is the highest index compared to Midwestern states west of the Mississippi River.

At 52.3 percent in July, Missouri topped the 47.6 percent national average.

"Any PMI figure over 50 represents an expansion in the manufacturing sector," Holste said.

The Governing Magazine's Top 10 states were Massachusetts, Oregon, Delaware, Colorado, California, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Utah, Virginia and Maryland.

The study's bottom 10 were listed as Arizona, Connecticut, Alabama, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska and West Virginia as the bottom 10.