On an average day in 2019, the Texas Workforce Commission received about 13,000 calls from Texans applying for unemployment benefits. Toward the end of the year the state unemployment rate hovered under 4 percent: it had not risen much higher than 8 percent in three decades. Texas almost effortlessly added jobs month to month, amid a rapidly expanding economy driven by population growth and a long-running energy boom that attracted vast sums of capital. Life was very, very good.Read Full Article »