The 7 States with the Most Post-Recession Job Growth

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The post-recession economic recovery has been uneven, with vastly different results from one state to the next. Here's a look at the states with the most job growth since 2009.

Much of the talk during last night’s Republican presidential candidate debate centered on the economy. The 17 Republican candidates have a range of economic experience. Many have private-sector business experience, two are physicians, and several candidates served as governors for their states.

Those governors are perhaps the easiest to evaluate when it comes to economics, since they have experience as the chief executives at a statewide level. And, at least when it comes to job creation, most of the presidential candidates don’t make the top tier of post-recession job-creation.

The Pew Charitable Trusts in May released a report looking at job creation in the 50 states since the Great Recession. The report looked at job data from December 2009, the year the recession officially ended, through March of this year. What follows is a ranking of the seven states with the most job creation (ranked by percentage) during that time span.

Only two presidential candidates find their states on the list, Rick Perry and Jeb Bush. However, Bush had left office before the recession began, and thus these numbers don’t reflect his work as governor. After Perry, the next-best presidential candidate when it comes to post-recession job-creation would be Ohio Gov. John Kasich, whose state has added 383,700 jobs since the recession, according to Pew. However, Ohio’s 7.67% job growth is in the middle of the pack, and thus the state doesn’t make our Top 7 list.