As does the fiscal experiment.

Figure 1: Kansas nonfarm payroll employment (blue), civilian employment (red), in 000’s, seasonally adjusted, Log scale. Dashed line denotes last period establishment series is QCEW benchmarked. Source: BLS.

Figure 2: Kansas labor force (teal), civilian employment (red), in 000’s, seasonally adjusted. Log scale. Source: BLS.

Figure 3: Kansas minus US unemployment rate, in percentage points (blue), and linear trend in this differential over the Brownback terms (red). Average over 1976-2010 (chartreuse) Green shaded area Brownback terms. Source: BLS, and author’s calculations.

Update, 9/19 9:45am Pacific: Kansas City Fed documentation of various Kansas indicators relative to Nation’s, here. The precarious state of the budget is discussed here.

Update, 9/21: As noted here, the Kansas Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors’ reports are no longer being posted online.

The postings stopped during last year’s statewide elections, with the council’s director saying it was “the subject of careless scrutiny.” A representative of the Kansas Department of Commerce said the IKE reports were dropped because they were viewed as a comprehensive overview of the state economy, rather than a snapshot of indicators. The public can request a copy of the report, he said.

Julian Silk conjectures that the collapse is partly driven by the drop in mining and logging activity. This might be true qualitatively but does not seem quantitatively important. See the Figure below.

Figure 4: Change in employment in Kansas mining and logging (orange) and in rest-of-nonfarm payroll (blue). Source: BLS and author’s calculations.

Update 9/22: See also this assessment by KC Fed economist Jason Brown.