“First, the debate over the alleged Texas miracle is not over whether Texas is in fact a miserable failure,” Krugman writes. “All the critics need to show is that Texas is not in fact the miracle Perry claims. And it isn’t.”

◼ Krugman’s miraculous deception on Texas wages - Philip Klein/Washington Examiner

To start, it’s pretty absurd to set up a standard wherein critics only need to show that Texas’s economic performance can’t be likened to an act of divine intervention....

(C)ost of living data from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center, a division of the state’s department of economic development. Texas ranked second behind Oklahoma as the lowest cost state for the second quarter of 2011, when looking at the composite cost index for groceries, housing, utilities, transportation, health care and other “miscellaneous goods and services.” By contrast New Jersey was 44th, California was 45th, New York was 46th and Massachusetts was 49th. That is, the four states Krugman cites are not only more expensive than Texas, but among the costliest states in the country.

◼ Rick Perry and The Political Jobs Numbers - politicalmathblog

We can see that Texas has grown the fastest, having increased jobs by 2.2% since the recession started. I want to take a moment and point out that second place is held by North Dakota. I added North Dakota to my list of states to show something very important. North Dakota currently has the lowest unemployment rate of any state at 3.2%. And yet Texas is adding jobs at a faster rate than North Dakota. How can this be?

The reason is that people are flocking to Texas in massive numbers. Starting at the beginning of the recession (December 2007), let's look at how this set of states have grown in their labor force.