While Nation Struggles, There's One Miracle State

The chart above shows the "Coincident Economic Activity Indexes" for the U.S. and a sample of U.S. states (New York, Florida, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Illinois, and Wisconsin).  The coincident economic indexes are based on four variables: nonfarm payroll employment, the unemployment rate, average hours worked in manufacturing, and wages and salaries.  

While the current economic conditions in most states, and the country as a whole, remain below their pre-recession levels in 2007, there's one miracle state (see red line) whose economic activity index is 17% above the pre-recession level.  If the Obama administration is really interested in putting thousands of  Americans to work at "shovel ready" jobs, it might want to look to the "miracle state" and see how they did it; it's a formula that could easily be replicated in many areas around the country.