I barf when politicians take credit for private job creation. At best, they stay out of the way. At worst, they erect barriers to make growth and job formation more difficult. So I am not ready to credit Rick Perry with Texas' economic performance over the last several years.
But despite enormous work on the left to try minimize the Texas performance, it does appear to be very impressive. The author observes that merely comparing unemployment rates across states masks the huge job growth advantage in Texas. Texas has higher relative unemployment compared to states like CA not because it is doing poorly, but because hundreds of thousands of people have given up on states like CA and moved to Texas looking for work.