The “Texas Miracle” could become more like a mirage. For years, politicians in the second-largest U.S. state bragged that low taxes and loose regulations kept employment high while the rest of the country was mired in economic doldrums following the 2008 crash. Turns out it was just its deep pockets of oil and gas. Unemployment may surpass the national rate in the next year for the first time since 2006, according to Prestige Economics LLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and ING Bank NV. Texas is already experiencing a “rapid deceleration” in job growth to just a third of what it was last year following a slump in oil prices, said Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “The Texas miracle was predicated on high oil prices, which are probably gone for a while,” said Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics in Austin, Texas. Crossing Over Texas’s unemployment rate, which dropped as low as […]