Maryland's job growth continues to slightly outperform that of Virginia during this slow, miserable recovery. Neither state is spinning prosperity. But according to the numbers for September, released this morning, Maryland has added 55,000 jobs -- 2.2 percent -- to its job base since employment hit bottom in February 2010. Virginia touched bottom in the same month, but since then it has added only 40,000 jobs -- 1.6 percent.

Maryland's recession was worse, however. The state lost 5.6 percent of its jobs from its peak employment of Feb. 2008 to its trough of Feb. 2010. In Virginia, whose peaks and troughs were in the same months, the job loss was 4.8 percent. Maryland's unemployment rate for September, however, was 7.4 percent -- worse than Virginia's. Virginia's September unemployment was 6.5 percent. Thanks largely to federal spending, both states are doing substantially better than the country as a whole.