Texas Gov. Rick Perry says he deserves an unprecedented third full term as governor because the state's economy is strong. Perry recently boasted to reporters that Texas 'is in an enviable position' economically and will lead the United States out of its deepest national downturn since the Great Depression. He told Houston business leaders that Texas was 'kind of recession-proof' and even joked about the current recession: 'We're in one?' Perry's comments have sparked a war of words with his rival for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Hutchison's campaign has accused Perry of being out of touch with the pain felt by many Texans; Perry's camp replied that the senator's supporters were deliberately taking the governor's words out of context. The heated exchange between the opposing camps underlines the emphasis that the Hutchison campaign is trying to place on the faltering economy as she challenges a popular incumbent. 'Gov. Perry plays very, very well to the conservative base voters that you'll find in a primary,' University of Texas political scientist Paul Stekler said. 'Sen. Hutchison has to find a reason that conservative Republicans would have to go vote against Governor Perry in a primary.' So what are the facts behind the political rhetoric? The statistics shows a decidedly mixed bag. While the Texas economy may not be quite as robust as Perry contends, the figures show that it has largely weathered the national economic storm better than many other states. And while some parts of the state are booming -- particularly the state capital of Austin -- other regions are reeling, including Gulf Coast counties hit by the double whammy of a national recession and the devastation of Hurricane Ike last year. Perry, accentuating the positive, notes that Texas is the nation's top destination for people who are relocating, with 1,000 people moving to Texas every day. He doesn't mention that more jobs were lost last month in Texas than in any other state in the nation. Texas shed 62,200 jobs from July to August, 19,000 more than Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation. Although Texas' 8 percent unemployment rate remains below the national average of 9.7 percent, its jobless rate is climbing faster than that of many states. More than half the nation's states have seen their unemployment rates jump by at least 60 percent this year, and Texas is one of them. A year ago, only 5 percent of Texans were jobless, well below the national norm. So while the Texas economy is outperforming the nation's and doing significantly better than other large states -- California lost 741,000 jobs in the last year and is grappling with an unemployment rate of 12.2 -- many Texans are feeling the effects of the national recession with painful clarity. With them in mind, the Chronicle asked Texas economists to weigh in on the state of the state economy. Their conclusions: Is Texas in a recession? Absolutely. Economists at the Dallas Federal Reserve say an exact date for the beginning of the recession is difficult to pin down, but Alex Johnson, a spokesman for the bank, said that economists at the bank have determined that a recession began in Texas late last year, a conclusion they reached by evaluating the state's payroll employment, GDP and unemployment rate. Are things getting better? At least they're not getting worse. New jobless claims have slowed from their peak this spring, and economists say most of the damage has already been done. But University of Houston economist Barton Smith thinks the state is at least a year away from serious job growth. 'I think that we're going to experience a year in 2010 that will be really frustrating,' Barton said. 'I think we're going to see meager, meager job growth. It's going to be at least a year before we say, 'Yeah, this feels like a recovery.'' Is every part of the state feeling the pain? Not at all. Last month, while 4,000 jobs were lost in the Houston area, 900 jobs were created in the Austin area. The capital's mix of government, education and technology jobs has generated remarkable stability, according to University of Houston economist Steven Craig. Farther south, Gulf Coast cities are facing more severe contractions in their job markets as demand drops for oil and gas and international shipping. The Houston area has lost 95,100 jobs in the last year, compared to 7,200 in Austin. Is Texas going to lead the nation out of this recession? It doesn't look like it. For the first year of the national recession, Texas appeared to be immune to its effects, Smith said, largely because the state was coasting along on the strength of sky-high energy prices. But when the recession led the price of oil to plummet from $150 a barrel to $40 a barrel, Texas 'became a full participant' in the national recession, Smith said. Now that Texas is watching its unemployment rise along with everyone else, Smith sees no reason that Texas should be one of the first states to emerge from the recession. Given its dependence on energy prices, Texas is going to need the national and international economy to begin growing again before it will see significant progress. 'Step one is a U.S. recovery,' Smith said. 'Then the U.S. economy has to spill over into the global economy, and that will then light the fire to the two other drivers of the Texas economy: energy and international trade.' 