O'Malley Again Uses State Resources to Promote Misleading Economic Data

Latest U.S. Dept. of Labor Data Refutes O'Malley's Economic Propaganda

Annapolis - Modest improvements in Maryland's unemployment rate and month-to-month employment figures, announced today by the U.S. Department of Labor, are not nearly enough to move the needle on the state's status as a regional laggard in economic performance.

Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia have experienced lower rates of job declines since 2007.   So far this year, Virginia's gain of 19,200 jobs, Pennsylvania's gain of 33,000 jobs and the District's gain of 6,500 jobs are drastically higher than Maryland's gain of just 4,200.

"Martin O'Malley can order the state's economic development office to sit around and do bar graphs and pie charts all day long," said Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan.  "The fact remains that Maryland is a regional laggard in loss of taxpayers, job growth, and businesses lost."

A Department of Business and Economic Development "report" issued today and a Governor's blog item posted yesterday attempt to argue that Maryland's job growth is better than that of Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Governor O'Malley has repeatedly been accused by several well-respected organizations of cherry-picking data and putting out misleading, incorrect, and false economic data.

"There is no need to have economic development staff waste time concocting convoluted charts and graphs for what is simple and undeniable math," added Hogan. "If the governor really cares about job growth, he should order his staff to determine what the problems are, and get to work on solutions, rather than to engage them in political spin and propaganda designed to fudge the numbers to make him look good."


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Background:

DBED report:http://www.emarketingmd.org/pubs/documents/MarylandsEconomicStrength.pdf


Governor's blog:http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=6932