"The truth is - one job lost is one too many. It's one more Connecticut family that will struggle to make ends meet. One more sign that the state is continuing to hemorrhage jobs and lose ground to competing states in the region.
Of course, some might try and paint this as a win for the state, arguing that keeping some jobs here was the best we could have hoped for. I think it's time we stopped setting the bar so low for ourselves, and started demanding accountability."
— Dan Malloy, "Malloy Responds to Pfizer New London Headquarters Closing"
"I rounded."
— Dan Malloy to Courant Editorial Board
Here's episode two. Judging from the stony silence from Malloy supporters to my earlier post is an indication that he has actually been caught dead to rights on the issue.
Malloy's post-revelation press release, "The ad is accurate - will Ned disclose his records?", cited three news articles that made no mention whatsoever of job growth, and in an interview with Ken Dixon that was something of a rebuttal to the Courant piece and subsequent Lamont criticism, acknowledged "that when the recession hit, Stamford employment totals fell like most places in the state."
Well, now we're getting somewhere. But even this claim is false, and continues a pattern of misleading the public to claim a successful job record compared to the rest of the state, when in fact most towns, and the state as a whole, outperformed Stamford during his tenure as Mayor.
As I said earlier in the week, Malloy might have some insight into what would succeed, having experienced failure. I used his quote that "it's time we stopped setting the bar so low for ourselves" to show that, in fact, he and his campaign did believe in accountability when it comes to an overall jobs record -- and to illustrate how shabby his insistence on repeating a grossly inaccurate figure is by contrast.
Net Job Growth, Stamford vs. Statewide, 1995-2009
The only two figures that were available from the Department of Labor (via the Courant) for 2009 are Stamford and the state as a whole, and the verdict for the period from 1995 to 2009 is that the State of Connecticut, as a whole, experienced net job growth of 2.01%, while Stamford experienced a net job loss of 7.27%.
Year over Year Job Growth, Stamford vs. Statewide, 1995-2009
In the fourteen one-year intervals between 1995 and 2009, Stamford outperformed the state in annual job creation in five years, tied the state in one year, and was outperformed by the state in eight years. Note that the City of Stamford has never outperformed the state as a whole since Jodi Rell took office in July of 2004.
The gray shaded areas in the above graph are defined recessionary periods from the National Bureau of Economic Research. As you can see, three of the seven years in which Stamford experienced job losses occurred during these periods, but four of the seven occurred when the economy as a whole was not in recession.
In 2003 and 2004, the state as a whole experienced overall job growth, while Stamford experienced job losses.
Stamford vs. The Other 168 Towns in Job Creation
A graph with 169 criss-crossing lines is actually not very useful to see, so this one is a little simpler. This graph illustrates Stamford's rank in annual job growth relative to the other towns in the state from 1995 to 2008 (2009 is not available yet for the other towns) -- a higher number is a worse rank.
In the 13 one-year periods since 1995, Stamford was in the top half of Connecticut's towns for job creation only 4 times; was at the median value (85th place) once, and was in the bottom half eight times.
Stamford has not been in the top half of Connecticut's towns since 2000, and since Malloy became Mayor, has never been in the top third of CT towns.
Looking at the year-to-year figures for 2001-2002 and from 2007-2008 (the only two figures available for recessionary periods), we can evaluate the claim that "when the recession hit, Stamford employment totals fell like most places in the state." From 2001-2002, 87 towns experienced zero or positive job growth. From 2007-2008, 85 towns experienced zero or positive job growth. So not only did Stamford perform worse than most towns in those years, most Connecticut towns actually increased their total number of jobs in those two periods.
Stamford's 2.01% job loss from 1995 to 2008 ranks it 130th in overall job creation of Connecticut's 169 towns. The list of towns that did worse (in descending order of badness), along with a couple more graphs, are available below the fold. |
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