Audrey Gibson messages against ‘Rick’s recession’

Headlining Thursday’s stop of the “Rick’s Recession” tour, Jacksonville state Sen. Audrey Gibson blasted both Gov. Rick Scott and his economic policies over the past seven years.

Hosted by the left-leaning activist group “For Our Future,” the statewide tour is to highlight that 36 of Florida’s 67 counties remain at pre-2008 recession job levels, and — specific to Duval County — 37 percent of households qualify as “working poor.”

Gibson, the Senate Minority Leader-Designate who denounced Scott‘s Senate campaign launch last month, extolled his opponent, “moderate” U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (notwithstanding qualms from some quarters).

As one of the speakers, Gibson, who also faces a primary challenge in her re-election bid, described the economic challenges that she accuses Scott’s policies of making worse.

“Ten years ago,” she said, “Florida, just like the rest of the country, was slammed by the Great Recession.”

As “more and more people lost their jobs, it became more and more difficult to put food on the table … Jobs have left our country. It’s hard to get those jobs back. You almost never get them back.”

As for Scott’s job creation approach, Gibson argued that the “jobs have not come back … despite incentive dollars in the budget.”

Money was supposed to include training and move people from poverty, but often “a real job is not created,” Gibson said.

“If half of Florida is in recession,” she added, “all of Florida is in recession.”

Rural areas — such as Baker, Bradford, Putnam and Union counties — have suffered most because of a lack of economic diversification, Gibson said. The jobs that have come to Florida have not been as high-paying as have been needed.

And tourism is not reliable either, she said, despite “visit numbers up over the last few years, many of [those tourism workers] are living in poverty.”

The Department of Economic Opportunity took issue with Gibson’s framing of the numbers.

According to a DEO representative, Scott took office in 2011 and is therefore not responsible for a 2008 recession. Also, job creation numbers represent a more reliable indicator; many people have more than one job, while others may live and work in different counties.

The Department also disputes the application of the term “working poor,” accusing event organizers of manufacturing its own definitions.