Monday numbers

7—number of days since Governor Pat McCrory told a business audience that the two percent decrease in the state’s unemployment rate in the last year was evidence that his economic policies were creating jobs as part of a “Carolina Comeback” (“McCrory claims ‘Carolina Comeback’ economic recovery has come, Associated Press, January 6, 2013)

2—number of surveys used to measure change in employment levels in North Carolina, the Current Employment Statistics that surveys local employers and includes full-time, part-time, and temporary employment and people with multiple jobs—and the Local Area Unemployment Survey that measures people who are employed and those who are unemployed and those who were employed but unpaid in a month. (“Prosperity Watch Issue 33, Number 1: North Carolina’s job creation in 2013 weakest of any year since 2009, N.C. Budget & Tax Center)

1—rank of 2013 in the weakest job growth in North Carolina of the four years since the Great Recession officially ended in 2009 (Ibid)

37,700—amount of net payroll employment increase in North Carolina from January 2013 to November 2013 (Ibid)

8,420—number of FEWER people employed in North Carolina at the end of November 2013 than were employed in January 2013 (Ibid)

71—number of months since the start of the Great Recession (Ibid)

2—percentage that North Carolina employment remains below pre-recession levels as of November 2013 (Ibid)

478,000—number of jobs in the North Carolina jobs deficit, the number of jobs needed to replace the jobs lost during the recession and account for the state’s population growth (Ibid)

13—number of years it would take to close the state’s job deficit of 478,000 if North Carolina’s employment growth annually stayed at the 2013 pace in the payroll survey (Ibid)

18—percentage of people in North Carolina living in poverty in 2012, the last year for which data is available (“North Carolina’s counties remain in poverty’s tight grip,” The Progressive Pulse, January 11, 2014)

1.7 million—number of people in North Carolinians living on incomes below the federal poverty level—$23,492 annually for a family of four.  (Ibid)

5—number of days since Governor Pat McCrory told a television interviewer that before sharp cuts were made to unemployment benefits by the General Assembly, laid off workers had been moving to North Carolina because of what McCrory called the state’s “generous” unemployment benefits (“McCrory cautious on unemployment insurance during Sunday show interview, WRAL-TV, January 9, 2014)

0—number of unemployment benefits out of state workers who moved to North Carolina could have received from the state if they had not worked here before they made their claims (N.C. Division of Employment Security)