Job growth in Minnesota has been tepid for most of 2014, but yesterday's report was a good one, and over the past 12 months, the state has added a seasonally-adjusted 44,600 jobs.
That's about par for the course over the past four years, but one thing about the growth has been encouraging. Almost 40 percent of the jobs added since August a year ago have been in construction and manufacturing, industries that pay what most people consider a middle-class wage.
That could be a blip, and construction and manufacturing still have a ways to go to recover pre-recession employment levels, but either way, the above chart is good news for the middle class.
