Thanks to Trump, there is still no recession in sight for Nevada

By Andy Matthews

Despite the ongoing Democrat campaign to spread pessimism about our prosperous future, the Silver State continues to thrive under Donald Trump.

According to a recent report from the state’s Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation, Nevada’s jobless rate in October was almost a half percentage point lower than it was in the same month last year. In fact, the state economy has added more than 30,000 new jobs over the past 12 months — a wave of job creation that has been largely fueled by President Trump’s campaign to eliminate job-killing federal regulations and cut taxes for the middle class.

It’s telling that the Democrat presidential candidates who showed up for an August debate in Las Vegas were more interested in talking about their plans to take away health insurance from union members and “decriminalize” illegal immigration than in discussing the state’s economy, even as liberal-leaning news outlets were loudly trumpeting baseless predictions of an impending recession.

When Donald Trump first took office, Nevada had approximately 1.3 million nonfarm workers employed throughout the state. Today, that figure has jumped to more than 1.4 million jobs.

While the President’s critics might attempt to downplay this growth as marginal, context is everything. Thanks to Donald Trump, the U.S. economy is operating near full employment, making it impossible to sustain the same remarkable rate of job growth that Americans have enjoyed for the past two and a half years. There are simply fewer unemployed workers available to fill new job openings.

Considering the flurry of economic milestones that our state has achieved in recent years, the ongoing expansion is nothing short of remarkable.

Even Democrat Governor Steve Sisolak praised the recent jobs report — although he naturally said little about the role President Trump’s economic policies have played in bringing about such encouraging results.

“This month’s economic report reflects positive growth in Nevada’s economy,” Sisolak said in a recent statement, adding that “employment in the state continues to show increase over the year, exceeding the national job rate, while unemployment rate remains low and unchanged.”

However, even as our state economy continues to thrive, threats to our prosperity remain. In fact, the governor and his left-wing allies in the legislature have made it clear that they intend to push an agenda that would undermine the economic success Nevadans now enjoy. During this past legislative session, Democrats passed destructive tax increases thumbing their noses at the will of Nevada citizens as well as our state constitution in the process and their far-left political allies are now mounting an effort to put more new taxes on the ballot.

It’s absurd that as President Trump’s national policies continue to produce such clear and widespread benefits to our state, Nevada’s liberals would attempt to ram through state-level policies that would hamper that success. For the sake of our future prosperity, it’s critical that their efforts fail.

Of course, Nevada is hardly the only state to benefit from Donald Trump’s pro-growth economic platform, which has spurred job creation and business investment throughout the country. The national unemployment rate, for instance, has been hovering near 50-year lows for the past several months. Wages keep increasing rapidly, as well, with median wage growth continuing to exceed 3 percent.

That’s not even the end of the good news for American workers, because President Trump’s tax cuts are also allowing them to keep more of their hard earned pay. In Nevada, the average taxpayer saved over $1,300 on their federal income taxes last year thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Unlike his liberal predecessor, Donald Trump is committed to creating wealth, not just redistributing it. That’s why Nevada continues to prosper despite all the naysaying from the left.

Andy Matthews is a former president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute.