3.4% unemployment - lowest in the nation.
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
$90,000 Average salary for an oil and gas worker, and billions of tax dollars collected.
"The average worker in the oil and gas sector here earns more than $90,000 a year -- a sum so large that it’s pushed up incomes in non-oil sectors as well. The overwhelming majority of these oil jobs require a high school degree or less. The oil and gas workforce here has increased from 5,000 in 2005 to more than 30,000 today. The recession remains in their minds: Many hail from outside the state and are working grueling 80-hour-a-week shifts in hopes of earning enough money to save their homes elsewhere from foreclosure.
Meanwhile, the state has benefited enormously from taxes on the industry, which generated an estimated $839 million in FY 2011 and are expected to generate more than $2 billion over the next two years. As other states have been forced to make drastic budget cuts targeting education, public assistance and Medicaid spending, North Dakota recently approved a budget that increases spending by 12 percent over its upcoming two-year budget cycle. “This is a time of opportunity,” says Brad Bekkedahl, a Williston city commissioner. “It’s a time of growth. And it’s a time of amazing prosperity and wealth coming into our community.”"
http://www.governing.com/topics/ener...ing-curse.html
Society is benefitting from BIG OIL, yet the left continues to oppose oil and gas developments in the USA. Why does left want to deprive Americans an opportunity for good pay? Why doesn't the left want to collect these taxes? Does the left hate Americans and America?
I'll tell you why. The left hates free enterprise, and especially in the oil and gas industry. The left wants government to control business and deny opportunity to Americans (as they are doing RIGHT NOW). To them, Americans need to be beholden to government, and not real employers who produce goods and services Americans really need (yeah, that's right, American's don't really need Solyndra). If you earn your money, the left has little control. If they give you money, they have control.
Make no mistake, the left will continue to go, "left" to the welfare state because that gives them the most power.