Over seventy thousand Montana workers can’t find work or can’t get the hours of work they need to make ends meet. But stagnant, high unemployment is not just a problem for the jobless. A strong economy is dependent upon a strong middle class.  This means access to good jobs, wages, and benefits for a hard day’s work. When tens of thousands of Montana workers are unemployed or underemployed, economic growth and prosperity are limited for all Montanans.

This report will serve as a reminder to our policymakers that our first and primary focus must be on building an economy in Montana that will encourage job growth. 

The State of Working Montana series explores the state of Montana’s economy from the perspective of its workers and documents how they are faring. In every report in this series, our analysis goes beyond the top-level indicators that many use to evaluate the Montana economy. Instead, we focus on what matters to people who live and work in Montana.

With Montana’s economy in a timid recovery, “jobs” has become the buzzword of this legislative session. However, if the actions taken by the Legislature are ultimately adopted, they would destroy thousands of jobs across the state of Montana. The proposed budget would weaken Montana’s essential public services, hurt hard-working families, and divert Montana from a path to long-term and widely-shared prosperity.

The State of Working Montana series explores the state of Montana’s economy from the perspective of its workers and documents how they are faring. In every report in this series, our analysis goes beyond the top-level indicators that many use to evaluate the Montana economy. Instead, we focus on what matters to people who live and work in Montana.

The pivotal debate currently underway in Congress on how to address the federal deficit will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on our nation, our state, and our collective ability to address priorities from Social Security and health care to education. For example, many of the proposals being discussed would result in deep cuts to Medicaid. In addition to jeopardizing the health of many of our most vulnerable neighbors, the Medicaid cuts could have a devastating impact on the struggling economies of every state in the nation, putting hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of economic activity at risk. Considering the state has only gained 7,500 jobs since the lowest point of the recession, these proposed cuts to Medicaid could eliminate over half of all jobs gained since Montana began its recovery.

The Great Recession cost Montana thousands of jobs. Montana has experienced recessions in the past, but this time job losses have been more severe and continued longer than in previous recessions.

Montana can respond to the recession-induced economic challenges in ways that protect families and prepare us for a more prosperous future. In order to protect Montana’s job numbers from slipping further, state policymakers can protect the economy by taking a balanced approach to the budget that includes revenue increases to meet today’s needs and start planning for our future. Balancing the budget through cuts alone will lead to unnecessary lay-offs and a further drag on an economy struggling to recover.

The twelve tribal Nations and seven Indian reservations of Montana encompass richly complex diversity, cultures, histories, talents, and resources. The tribal Nations and their members have contributed immeasurably to the development to the state’s history, culture, and economy. Unfortunately, just as Montana’s tribes influenced our nation’s and our state’s development, the U.S. government has had a profound and sometimes devastating impact on the nation’s American Indian population. In this installment of the Montana Budget and Policy Center’s State of Working Montana, we explore dramatic racial and economic inequality plaguing Montana. While a recounting of the complex history between the federal and state governments and Montana’s tribal Nations is beyond the scope of this report, the data analysis provided here is, in many ways, the legacy of centuries of damaging policies and practices by the federal government and lingering negative

The economic recession has challenged Montana—hardworking people have lost their jobs, savings have dwindled and families continue to struggle to make ends meet. However, for some communities in Montana, the recession was not the beginning of the economic crisis. These economically stressed communities suffered greatly compared to their neighbors well before the recession started. High unemployment, low levels of education and a lack of working age adults have prevented these communities from thriving, and these problems were only further compounded by the recession.

Each year, over 150,000 Montanans struggle to provide health insurance coverage for their families. For thousands more, the cost of health insurance is making it harder and harder to meet their families’ other basic needs. 

The health reform package recently passed by Congress may not solve all of our health care system’s underlying problems, but it will bring coverage to thousands of Montana families who had been living without access to affordable health care, at relatively low cost to the state of Montana.

This edition of the State of Working Montana explains how health reform will improve access to care in Montana.  While we do not cover every provision included in the bill, we have kept a sharp focus on how the bill improves affordability of insurance and access to coverage for the uninsured.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress last year did a lot to jumpstart growth in Montana. Jobs, services, and investment have stayed afloat thanks to this crucial piece of legislation. It's hard to imagine how much worse things would have been without the stimulus package.

This report details how the ARRA kept people working, services functioning, and money flowing due to its injection of spending into our economy.