MuniLand

State and local employees have not been as hard hit as the general economy. At 19 million strong, this workforce comprises about 14.6 percent of total U.S. non-farm employment. It looks as if education workers are particularly being shielded from job cuts.

Chris Mauro, Head of U.S. Municipals Strategy at RBC Capital Markets wrote today in a privately circulated research note (emphasis mine):

[O]n a percentage basis, the state general government (non-education) sector has seen the largest decline in employment since December 2007. As of October 2011, it is down almost 6% from its recent peak.

Similarly, local education employment is currently down about 3% from the peak and has now also declined by a greater percentage than in any of the prior three recessions.

State education employment, which has historically been very recession resistant, has been growing at a moderate rate since December 2007 but, here again, the growth rate has been slower than in any of the previous three recessions.

The future for young Americans may increasingly be down on the farm. Farmers have been begging for a new class of laborers to replace illegal immigrants as law enforcement officials enforce new bans on migrants’ employment eligibility. And with the unemployment rate for 16-24 year-olds at 17.5 percent, there are plenty of young, idle hands that could till the nation’s crops.

If only it were that simple. Several reports came out today that American citizens were generally not capable of doing farm labor. The AP reported:

Jerry Spencer had an idea after Alabama’s tough new law against illegal immigration scared Hispanic workers out of the tomato fields northeast of Birmingham: Recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to do the work, give them free transportation and pay them to pick the fruit and clean the fields.

In our turbulent times, middle-income households are falling behind and national data depicts an economy that’s stagnating. But tax revenue data for many states hints that some earners have had substantial increases in their incomes.

Let’s start with the national numbers. There has been a lot of reporting this week about median personal income dropping since the official end of the recession in June 2009. Robert Pear wrote in the New York Times:

Between June 2009, when the recession officially ended, and June 2011, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7 percent, to $49,909, according to a study by two former Census Bureau officials. During the recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — household income fell 3.2 percent.

New chair for muniland’s regulator

New leadership has been announced at the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, muniland’s primary regulator. Alan Polsky of Dougherty & Co., the incoming MSRB chairman, has spent much of his career working towards increased transparency in the muni secondary market where bonds trade after issuance. This is great news. From the Bond Buyer:

Alan D. Polsky, senior vice president of Minneapolis-based Dougherty & Co. LLC and former chair of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, will be the next chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board beginning Oct. 1, according to market sources.

Polsky spent a great deal of time trying to improve secondary market disclosure when he chaired the NFMA in 2001. During that year, the NFMA issued several “best practice” disclosure documents recommending how issuers, borrowers, and other market participants could improve disclosure in various sectors of the market. Polsky also was a member of the Muni Council, a group of about 20 muni market group representatives dedicated to improving secondary market disclosure. The group was responsible for the creation of the Central Post Office facility which temporarily served as a one-stop place for issuers to file their disclosure documents.