Who Created 85-Thousand Jobs?
August 2nd, 2011 by flanewsGovernor Rick Scott won the election promising to create 700-thousand jobs in seven years. The jobs, he promised, would be on top of the ones created by the natural economic rebound of the state’s economy. But what jobs are being created by the economy and what jobs are being created by Scott? As Whitney Ray tells us, even Scott admits, it’s hard to tell.
Governor Rick Scott has lived up to his campaign slogan ever since he took the oath of office. Twelve hour work days and seven day work weeks, spent calling business leaders, eliminating regulations and lowering taxes, all in an effort to create jobs. He promised 700-thousand of them in seven years.
The Scott jobs are supposed to be above and beyond the one million economists predicted will be created naturally as the economy rebounds from the recession.
And we are starting to see signs we are in that rebound. The unemployment rate is down from 12 to 10 percent since Scott took office.
“Florida has had a gain in jobs over the month now for five months,” said Rebecca Rust, Chief Economists for AWI.
Since then Florida has added 85-thousand jobs; but which ones can be credited to Scott? We asked.
Reporter: These 85-thousand jobs that have been created since January 1st, will these jobs count toward your goal of 700-thousand in seven years?
Scott: I hope they count.
But how can you tell the difference between a Scott job and one created by the economy? We asked that too.
Reporter: How do you determine which ones are on top of the natural economic growth?
Scott: you can’t, you can’t.
In the end the 900-thousand unemployed Floridians don’t’ care how a job is created, just as long as they can find one that pays a decent wage. Critics of Scott’s plan say, the governor has actually cost the state more jobs than he’s created. They point to the elimination of 13-hundred state jobs and Scott’s rejection of two billion dollars in federal high speed rail money.
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