Published: 6:36 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, 2010
DALLAS — Texas will be “last in, first out” among states battling the recession, although a recovery that has already started will require patience, a leading economist says.
The Lone Star State proved resilient because of advantages such as weather, stable home prices and a political climate favorable for companies seeking new places to do business, said Ray Perryman, head of the Perryman Group and a longtime Texas economist.
As a measure of Texas faring better than most states, Perryman pointed to the 300,000 job losses, which, although a large number, represented about 4 percent of the losses nationally in a state that accounts for about 8 percent of the U.S. economy, he said. Using that formula, Texas had about half the job losses that might be expected.
One of the strongest signs of a recovering economy, Perryman said, is Texas enjoying job gains the past two months and three of the past six. He and other economists say that trend will continue, but at a modest rate. Analysts say the same thing about other sectors of the Texas economy.
While Perryman said he thinks the Texas recovery will track ahead of the national recovery, Assanie said the improvements are likely to coincide with each other. She said recovery should be well under way before the end of the year. “We feel like we are sort of in the infant stages of that bottoming out and the recovery,” Assanie said
