Brownback still seeks to add 100,000 new jobs despite falling short in 2015

Gov. Sam Brownback says it’s still his goal to create 100,000 private-sector jobs during his second term despite falling far off that pace in 2015.

During his re-election campaign in 2014, Brownback had set a goal of creating 25,000 jobs a year.

Between December 2014 and December 2015, the state gained 9,400 private-sector jobs, a growth rate of 0.8 percent.

“That was the target, yes,” Brownback said Wednesday when asked about his campaign trail goal. He said it has been difficult to sustain job growth because of the state’s low unemployment rate, which is 3.9 percent.

“It gets tougher the lower your unemployment rate gets, but we think we’ve got some nice things moving,” Brownback said. “We’re working on some good packages. … We’ve got several things going in the Kansas City area that I think are good to see a surge moving on forward.”

Brownback said it was still his goal to hit 100,000 new private-sector jobs over four years. Asked whether he was optimistic about that, he hedged his bets.

“It gets tougher,” he said. “We need people. When you get to 3.9 percent unemployment, you have a number of places in the state where we have jobs but not people, and that makes it harder. It gets more difficult.”

Rep. Annie Kuether, D-Topeka, said the reason the state doesn’t have people to fill those jobs is because “people are leaving the state of Kansas. They’re leaving.” She blamed this on the governor’s policies.

Brownback has previously said the low unemployment rate is proof that income tax cuts he ushered into law in 2012 are spurring economic growth.

Bernie Koch, executive director of the Kansas Economic Progress Council, said that data suggests otherwise. Koch said in a release Wednesday that “the facts do not corroborate that the 2012 and 2013 income tax cuts have had any significant or measurable positive influence on the Kansas economy.”

Koch’s group noted that the governor’s own economic advisers had noted in a November report that neighboring states, which did not enact income tax cuts, were leading Kansas in both private-sector and total employment growth and population growth.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Brownback still seeks to add 100,000 new jobs despite falling short in 2015."