Texas oil town has lowest unemployment rate in the nation; site of world’s largest solar plant has highest.
The U.S. metro area with the lowest unemployment rate is a shale oil boomtown. The one with the highest unemployment rate houses the world’s largest solar plant.
Energy policy experts are pointing to that dichotomy as evidence that job creation potential in the energy industry lies primarily with fossil fuels, despite the administration’s insistence on creating a “clean energy economy.”
According to data released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Midland, Texas, has a 2.9 percent unemployment rate, the lowest in the country.
Midland sits above the Permian Basin Shale, a massive formation that constitutes a large chunk of Texas’ booming shale oil industry.
The West Texas town is also one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, which many attribute to its booming oil-fueled economy.
“When people figured out how to [extract oil from shale] through fracking, that was the game changer,” former Midland Mayor Wes Perry told Governing.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is an innovative oil and gas technique that has helped revolutionize the American oil and gas industry. The United States is on track to become the world’s largest producer of oil by 2015, according to current projections.
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