About that record low unemployment rate

Dr. Michael Pakko

Dr. Michael Pakko speaks to engineers Nov. 7 about the state’s economy.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Economics has been called the “dismal science,” so leave it to an economist to offer a dose of reality regarding Arkansas’ “record low unemployment rate.”

That rate is 3.5 percent, the lowest ever measured and one that is slightly lower than the national 3.7 percent rate.

Elected officials understandably brag about those numbers because they are much better than in the recent past – particularly October 2009, when 10 percent of Americans were unemployed. The Great Recession supposedly had ended in June that year, but nobody knew it – certainly not those 10 percent.

Dr. Michael Pakko, chief economist and state economic forecaster at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Institute for Economic Advancement, offered a different take during his annual economic forecast Nov. 9. I heard him speak a couple of days earlier to an engineering association.

Pakko, whose overall forecast was positive, particularly regarding the next two years, is looking at another number – the labor force participation rate.

It tells us more. The unemployment rate measures only workers with a job or looking for one. The labor force participation rate includes people who aren’t trying to find one. Continue reading →

This could make the legislative session even crazier

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Things get crazy when 135 legislators gather at the Capitol to consider thousands of bills in three months’ time. Sometimes something happens that makes things crazier.

This upcoming legislative session, it could be the same issue that’s caused much of the craziness the past almost six years: Arkansas Works. This time, there’s a special reason why.  Continue reading →

Arkansas GOP still doesn’t hold majority of offices – yet

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansas is now thoroughly Republican at the state and national levels, as evidenced by the party controlling all six congressional offices, all seven statewide offices and three-fourths of the Legislature, as well as winning the presidential election here every year since 1996.

At the county level? Not yet.

According to data crunched by the Republican Party of Arkansas, Democrats still control 839 the state’s 1,524 partisan offices at all levels, not including constables. That’s about 55 percent. Republicans control 663, or 43.5 percent. The other 22 offices are held by officials who are neither Republican nor Democrat. Continue reading →

Higher taxes for highways?

Good Roads Foundation

Gov. Asa Hutchinson discusses his plans for highways before the Good Roads Foundation Nov. 13.

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

In two years, you’ll probably be asked to vote for higher taxes for Arkansas’ highways, for three reasons.

One reason is that highways are clearly underfunded. The Arkansas Department of Transportation has identified $9.3 billion in needs but only $4.5 billion in expected revenues over the next 10 years – numbers confirmed by a legislative audit. That extra $4.8 billion would maintain and improve the nation’s 12th largest highway system, but it would not fund the long-desired I-49 in western Arkansas and I-69 in south Arkansas.

Why the big shortfall? Highways are funded primarily through fuel taxes, which haven’t changed at the federal level since 1993 and in Arkansas since 1999. Neither were indexed to inflation, so as construction costs have risen, revenues have not. Meanwhile, vehicles have become more fuel efficient. Some – maybe someday many – don’t use fuel at all.

This has been the reality for a long time. Scott Bennett, ARDOT’s director, told me he’s made basically the same speech for 15 years.

What’s changed are the second and third reasons you’ll be asked to vote for higher taxes for highways. Continue reading →

Outsiders again can’t overcome political obstacles

By Steve Brawner, © 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Many voters say they want an outsider alternative to Republicans and Democrats, but at the ballot box they reliably select one of the two insiders. Such was again the case this election cycle.

Take, for example, Arkansas’ Libertarians. The party contested all four congressional races and all statewide races, but the governor’s race was the big one. Libertarians hoped their candidate, Mark West, could win 3 percent so they could avoid the legal requirement of collecting 10,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot in 2020.

They didn’t make it. West won 2.9 percent. His 25,753 votes fell 859 short.

West is a pretty good candidate who effectively articulates the Libertarians’ anti-government platform. He ran to the right of Gov. Asa Hutchinson on guns and government health care, which meant there was a population of unhappy conservatives receptive to his views. Hutchinson was certain to win re-election, so they should have felt free to cast their ballots for West.

Some undoubtedly did. He collected 9,434 more votes than the party’s candidate did in 2014. Still, it wasn’t enough. Continue reading →