State lawmakers have largely ignored rising unemployment. They have not crafted a plan to lead the state to economic recovery. Arizonans are paying the price, and according to The Arizona Republic, “you have to go back years, even decades, to find economic data that compares with the dismal numbers of today.” The paper continues:
Arizona's unemployment rate is the highest in 26 years. The percentage of job losses year over year is the worst since the end of World War II. Auto sales haven't been this weak since 1992, when the state's economy was only about one-third its current size.
In fact, the economy has been so out of whack that you can pretty much toss out numbers from 2005 through 2008. In terms of retail sales and the total number of non-farm jobs, we are roughly back to where we were in early 2004, before the boom-and-bust years began.
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