With 2020 Looming, PA Unemployment At Lowest Rate Since 1976

Pennsylvania's unemployment rate is at a near record low, dropping to just 3.8 percent, the lowest its been since 1976, according to statistics published by the state on Friday. That hovers just over the national rate of 3.6 percent.

That number is down a half a percentage point from April 2018, when the unemployment rate sat at 4.3 percent.

The total number of Pennsylvanians who are employed — 6,222,000 — is an all-time record, the state says.

With Pennsylvania once again a focal point of a Presidential election, it remains to be seen how these numbers might influence the race. While strong employment should reflect well on President Trump, a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday shows him trailing Democratic front runner Joe Biden in the state a significant margin, 53 percent to 42 percent.

Specifically, women in Pennsylvania are backing Biden disproportionately over Trump, 60 to 36 percent. Trump, however, leads with men in the state, 49 percent to 45 percent, the poll showed.

Analysts noted that Biden's advantage existed despite the economic numbers.

"More than half of Pennsylvania voters say they are better off financially than they were in 2016," Mary Snow, a pollster with Quinnipiac University, said in a statement. "But the economy isn't giving President Donald Trump an edge in an early read of the very key Keystone State."

Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes were crucial in Trump's 2016 victory, and the popular refrain often has it that he managed to win over a working class that felt alienated by Hillary Clinton and the left. Studies analyzing the 2016 election, however, cast further doubt on the relationship between economic harship and Trump's victory. A more powerful impetus for white voters, according to University of Pennsylvania professor Diana C. Mutz, was a sense that their status was threatened by racial diversity and globalism.

The gains noted in Pennsylvania over the past year were general for nearly all types of workers, with gains in nine of the state's 11 biggest employment sectors. The largest employment gains over the past year came from education, business services, and health services, according to the state's Department of Labor.

While the balance appears to have shifted to the left at this early stage, early is the key word: polls were similiarly low for Trump at this point in the 2016 lead-up, and they turned out not to be reflective of the electorate.

Both Biden and Trump have made Pennsylvania a 2020 linchpin. Biden, a Scranton native who served for decades in the Senate in nearby Delaware, has made Philadelphia his campaign headquarters. He's holding a rally in the city on Saturday.

Trump, meanwhile, will rally in Lycoming County in Montoursville next Monday.