Alaskanomics

April Unemployment in Alaska

The Department of Labor and Workforce Development release the April unemployment numbers and Alaska is still above the national average with a rate of 6.7 percent. The national average was 5.4 percent in April. This is the seasonally adjusted rate, which was up two-tenths of a percent from March. The non-seasonally adjusted rate dropped five-tenths of a percent as the summer season started to heat up. It looks like 2015 is shaping up about the same as 2014, in relation to unemployment in Alaska.

Employment grew throughout Alaska, with exception of Southwest, where winter fishing wound down for the season. Compared to 2014, statewide employment was relatively flat, even though we typically see substantial growth due to seasonal jobs picking up. Anchorage jobs were down slightly with the loss of some private sector jobs in construction and the professional and business services sectors. Health care and retail were up, but not enough to offset the losses.

Wade Hampton Census Area continued to have the highest unemployment rate in the state with 26.4 percent, while the Aleutians East Borough had the lowest at 2.8 percent.

For detailed employment estimates, see http://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/ces/. The estimates are preliminary and subject to potentially large revisions.

ISER Publication: The Path to a Fiscal Solution: Use Earnings from All Our Assets

By: Scott Goldsmith

The state government's assets could generate enough earnings in fiscal year 2016 to pay the Permanent Fund dividend, boost the size of the Permanent Fund, and cut the expected General Fund deficit from $3.3 billion to just over $1 billion—which would still be a big fiscal challenge but much more manageable. That's the finding of a new analysis by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER.

Those state assets consist of money in the Permanent Fund and other accounts as well as the value of state-owned petroleum still in the ground. Dr. Goldsmith estimates that after first paying the dividend and adding to the Permanent Fund, the state could put $2.2 billion in remaining earnings in the General Fund, which pays for public services. 

Right now the state uses only current petroleum revenues and smaller sources to cover General Fund spending—but those revenues are expected to fall $3.3 billion short of the estimated $5.5 billion in spending next year. Dr. Goldsmith finds that if the state's broader assets were carefully managed and annual General Fund spending was gradually reduced to about $4.5 billion, part of the asset earnings could be used every year, without risking the value of the assets themselves.

A grant from Northrim Bank funded this research. ISER publications are solely the work of individual authors and should be attributed to them, not to ISER, the University of Alaska Anchorage, or the research sponsors.

Read the analysis, The Path to a Fiscal Future: Use Earnings from All our Assets