We are blessed to live in a state where courageous reformers have answered voters’ repeated calls for change. The reform agenda in North Carolina since 2011 has led to a historic transformation of our state, reversing decades of ill-conceived progressive policies. Government programs are being evaluated, spending and borrowing are being reined in, and taxpayers are being shown more respect.No longer is government growth accepted as natural and unavoidable. This change of course has ushered in an era of economic growth highlighted by job creation, lower unemployment, and expanding opportunity.

In today’s Daily Journal, JLF’s John Hood delves into economic data about job growth and compares our state to others.

From June 2011 to November 2014, North Carolina added about 286,000 net new jobs, a rate of employment growth of 7.3 percent. For comparison purposes, I assembled four potential regional groupings: the Census Bureau’s nine-state “South Atlantic” region stretching from Maryland to Florida; the Commerce Department’s 12-state “Southeast” region stretching from Virginia to Louisiana; the 11 states that made up the old Confederacy; and North Carolina plus our four immediate neighbors.

In each case, I produced a job-growth rate from mid-2011 to the present. In each case, it was lower than North Carolina’s. Employment rose by 5.7 percent in the South Atlantic region, 5.2 percent in the Southeast, 6 percent in the former Confederacy, and 6.1 percent in our immediate neighborhood.

Here’s what striking to me: these are all lower rates of job growth than the 6.2 percent rate experienced by the nation as a whole during the same period. Although many people continued to assume that the South has a relatively strong, fast-growing economy, that assumption is many years out of date. Plenty of states in the Midwest, Great Plains, Mountain West, and even the Northeast are now consistently outperforming the South.

Which Southern states are beating the regional spread? As I mentioned, North Carolina (+7.3 percent) is one of them. The labor market continues to sizzle in Texas (+11.2 percent) and Florida (+9.2 percent). Other good performers are South Carolina (+7.5 percent) and Georgia (+6.7 percent).

Hood concludes that as we enter 2015, our state’s reformers would be wise to branch out beyond our close neighbors for examples of economic policies that have led to enviable job growth and economic performance.