When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest jobs report on December 19, most North Carolina politicians, journalists, economists, and policy analysts immediately zeroed in on the state’s recent performance. It’s easy to understand why — and the news for North Carolina was mostly good. But there’s a larger story worth telling, too.

Let’s start with the basics. The state’s unemployment rate dropped half a point to 5.8 percent in November, equaling the national average. The BLS payroll survey found that North Carolina employers created more than 16,000 net new jobs last month, one of the state’s largest monthly employment gains since the end of the Great Recession. On the other hand, the size of the civilian labor force dipped again, according to the less-reliable household survey.

For the most part, North Carolinians tend to compare monthly changes in unemployment rate and job gains to previous monthly changes within the state. Another useful practice, however, is to compare what happens in our state to what’s happening elsewhere — particularly in nearby states or others with which we share economic or cultural characteristics. Furthermore, because the month-to-month data can bounce around a lot, it’s often advisable to make longer-term comparisons.

So I pulled the payroll-survey data from each state starting in mid-2011, when many new governors and state legislatures (including the North Carolina General Assembly) began implementing new economic policies. Here’s what I found.

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).

Admittedly, job growth is only one of several variables for measuring economic performance. But when you look at other metrics such as per-capita income or gross domestic product, you get a similar result. The Southeast — indeed, the Sunbelt as a whole —no longer qualifies as a pacesetter for national economic growth. Some states in the region are doing well, including our own. But many others aren’t.

It’s beyond the scope of this column to explore all the potential causes in great depth. Industrial mix obviously matters a lot. Pro-growth tax and regulatory reforms in Midwestern states such as Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio are probably playing an important role. I wouldn’t be surprised to see changes in immigration patterns and trade flows among the causal factors, as well.

As North Carolina policymakers continue to advance their own reform agenda, they should look far beyond the Southeast if they want to find best practices to replicate here. We are already surpassing most of our neighboring states in economic performance, and have been for several years now. The next step is to compete effectively with the rest of the nation and the world. We certainly have the natural and human resources to do so. Let’s get to it.

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Hood is chairman of the John Locke Foundation.