From The Fiscal Times, August 28, 2012:

There’s one number New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie almost certainly won’t mention in his keynote speech Tuesday night at the Republican National Convention: 9.8 percent, his state’s current unemployment rate.

NJPP president Gordon MacInnes tells the Fiscal Times that New Jersey’s unemployment rate has climbed over the past two months to its highest point in 35 years, while the Christie administration declares in news statements that the “long-term trend remains positive.”

“We are the laggard. And as long as we deny or ignore that, we won’t come up with policies to change that,” he says. “Politicians always tell an incomplete truth, but you want some of it to be true.”

MacInnes also notes that most job growth in New Jersey is in service-sector jobs, while the state has lost jobs in the financial services sector and the pharmaceutical firm Roche will be shutting down its research and development facility in New Jersey.

“We’re losing out on the competition for high value-added jobs,” he says. “We’re not talking about that fact. And we need to.”