Arizona appears to be on the verge of having as many people working as there were before the economy tanked last year due to Covid.

As we look ahead to the future, we must find new and innovative ways to produce the energy we need to support our growing economy and the businesses and communities that call Arizona home. Fortunately, we have legislators prioritizing the clean energy, technology and innovation sectors by focusing on policy solutions that will have a real and positive impact on Arizona’s economy, both in the short-term as our economy recovers and for years into the future.

Arizona has led the nation in economic growth for several decades. This success was not by accident. When confronted with the direst of economic challenges, our leaders pushed for policy changes that allowed the state’s economy to survive, then thrive. Once again, we are faced with such a situation.

We should consider this pandemic a baby trial run knowing that a much bigger monster is on the horizon. Anti-biotic resistant bacteria will inevitably break out before long, expected to kill over 10 million per year by 2050. And, another more lethal virus, perhaps a mutation of Covid19, is certainly waiting out there.

There are plenty of news commentators who say America’s workers are doing just fine. They see low consumer prices, low unemployment, and a booming stock market as signs that all is well. But out in the real world, things are more worrying. Millions of Americans are barely subsisting on retail work in shopping malls and restaurants. And the kinds of jobs available to them are now declining in quality.

A top Raytheon executive announced Wednesday the company would add another 1,000 employees in Tucson even as he declined to say how much of the company's Arizona business involves selling missiles to Saudi Arabia.

A judge will decide whether this lawsuit has merit. But there is a bigger issue at stake. In the end, either the universities will continue to have the liberty to create new streams of revenue and provide business opportunities to the community that lead to positive outcomes, or they will not. In any case the vibrancy of our new age economy for generations to come depends on it.

At the Arizona Association of Community Managers, we do all that we can to support our management company members and their goal of providing excellent employment opportunities, and we look to our state legislators to help drive economic growth and to protect the industries, including the HOA industry, which provide tens of thousands of jobs within the great state of Arizona through sound policy decisions and effective legislation.

The state's jobless rate is up a tenth of a point and stands exactly where it did a year ago.

Arizonans who don't take pretty much any job after being out of work for at least four weeks will lose their unemployment benefits.