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Lone Star Success: Texas’ Booming Economy

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With oil prices rising once again, the economy of Texas is roaring. In the fourth quarter Texas’ GDP increased by 5.2%. However, Texas’s success isn’t rooted solely in its possession of oil. North Dakota, home to most of the Williston Basin saw its economy decline by 1.3%. The economics of Texas’ Permian Basin make its oil industry especially profitable compared to other shale plays around the country.

 

Sarah Chaney reports:

The economic recovery in Texas sheds light on how strong oil production in the Permian Basin is closely linked with other sectors, namely manufacturing, and fuels overall growth in the state and across the nation.

“It’s actually Texas that’s driving much of the national numbers on manufacturing,” said Rob Martin, U.S. economist at UBS. “In part, with the further rise in oil prices, we’re seeing other energy fields coming online. The Permian Basin was first. We’re seeing increased activity in Pennsylvania, North Dakota [and] New Mexico as those fields become more profitable.”

Texas added the most manufacturing jobs of any state from December 2016 to 2017, as payrolls rose by more than 16,000 over this period, Labor Department figures show.

Though the size of the state is part of the story, it’s not the whole story: Manufacturing employment growth in Texas outpaced national growth beginning around mid-2017 on a percentage basis, as well. In December, Texas manufacturing jobs grew 1.9% from a year earlier, while U.S. manufacturing jobs rose 1.7%.

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.