Jobs in Delaware
The NJ on Sunday begins a series looking at the state of jobs in Delaware, pointing out what we already know — that very low wage jobs are increasing, jobs in the middle are disappearing (or taking much less money) and there is employment in the upper end if you have the right education and skill set. And while the Governor and Alan Levin have been working at “economic development”, there’s been little increase in the kinds of jobs that are most needed here immediately. It is difficult to say that the Governor and his DEDO Director haven’t been working hard at this — I think they have. But most of what passes for economic development since the Great Recession pretty much everywhere is a numbers game — figuring out how to boost the number of jobs in your state without paying much attention to either the quality of those jobs or the ROI any taxpayer subsidy might provide for Delaware taxpayers. Governments are chasing the same limited pool of jobs and working at a classic race to the bottom strategy to get them. Almost all of them are providing taxpayer subsidies to get those jobs in their states, and clawback provisions in case the employer doesn’t fulfill promises are still too rare.
Fast food jobs in Delaware skyrocketed in the last decade, with low-paying food prep and service jobs seeing 29 percent growth – or more than 8,600 jobs added during the period. At the same time, better paying construction jobs have fallen by 30 percent, or losing more than 5,000 jobs, and production occupations fell by almost 27 percent, a loss of more than 5,300, according to a News Journal analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, top-salaried positions for the more educated jumped 12.3 percent, adding more than 7,200 jobs.
It’s the low-paying jobs that are already getting an employer handout in form of food assistance and Medicaid for some of these workers. I’m not sure how many of these low-wage ventures get DEDO or municipal help, but it is for certain that Amazon jobs are not a replacement for auto manufacturing. So that while the State is busily trying to entice companies here, we have companies here who already get support via safety net payments to their staff. If that isn’t a good enough reason to support a minimum wage, I don’t know what is. Because the thing we know is that taxpayers pay either via incentives given out by DEDO or they pay via safety net payments for people who are working, but whose employers don’t pay enough to keep them off of food stamps or Medicaid. There aren’t any proposals to raise the minimum wage enough to change that equation and certainly there are no legislators who are thinking of ways to get this hidden handout back for taxpayers.
Gov. Jack Markell, greeted by the Great Recession’s economic upheaval when he took office in January 2009, said he’s witnessed the way automation and global competition have devastated the state and national workforce.
This is less about automation, than it is about global competition, which lets companies seek very cheap labor to make their products. Even with our low minimum wage, Americans are not cheap labor. But if you accept that no one is even going to make a plastic fork in this country ever again, there’s no reason not to look hard and be creative about the small, but important effort to “re-shore” American job (see here and here). Thinking about how to help bring back some highly skilled manufacturing jobs, not just increases the overall pool of jobs, but can help companies get better quality, reduce vagaries in transportation and supply chain, take advantage of an underutilized labor source here that is absolutely ripe for these jobs and help to increase badly needed exports. I don’t want to oversell this as a magic wand, but it is definitely time to think about how to get back the higher-end manufacturing that fled to cheaper countries. We won’t be the manufacturing powerhouse we used to be, but we can get back and excel at high-skilled, high-end manufacturing that requires and good deal of quality. This is the kind of manufacturing that Germany has been good at keeping for themselves.
Over the last decade, the bottom 10 percent of workers saw real wage declines of 4.9 percent, while the top 10 percent of Delaware occupations saw pay skyrocket 22.3 percent, according to data compiled for The News Journal by the Delaware Department of Labor. For workers in jobs that make up the middle 60 percent of Delaware’s economy, wages fell 5.2 percent.
This, I think, is a feature, not a bug in our current economic climate. The jobs that are left here are basically those that can’t be offshored easily — knowledge work or service work. Because of the disappearance of the working middle, there is a great deal more competition in the service industries and it is easy for employers to take advantage of workers who are desperate for anything. So wages are depressed, vacation and sick pay disappear, employer insurance gives way to Medicaid and you’ve created a workforce that is pretty much captured by businesses that can make a very great deal of money by paying highly productive people no where near the value of their production.
Another thing with the automation claim is that it *may* not sync up with the data of those work sectors greatest hit. A paper by Tali Kristal in the American Sociological Review makes the point that it was unionized jobs that took the biggest hit:
“Some economists contend that computerization is the primary cause and that it has increased the productivity of machines and skilled workers, prompting firms to reduce their overall demand for labor, which resulted in the rise of corporate profits at the expense of workers’ compensation,” Kristal said. “But, if that were the case, and computerization was the principal cause for the decline in labor’s share of national income, then labor’s share should have declined in all economic sectors, reflecting the fact that computerization has occurred across the board in the past 30 to 40 years.”
This is not the case, however, as Kristal showed in her study, in which she considered data on 43 non-agricultural private industries and 451 manufacturing industries from 1969 through 2007.
“It was highly unionized industries — construction, manufacturing, and transportation — that saw a large decline in labor’s share of income,” Kristal said. “By contrast, in the lightly unionized industries of trade, finance, and services, workers’ share stayed relatively constant or even increased. So, what we have is a large decrease in labor’s share of income and a significant increase in capitalists’ share in industries where unionization declined, and hardly any change in industries where unions never had much of a presence. This suggests that waning unionization, which led to the erosion of rank-and file workers’ bargaining power, was the main force behind the decline in labor’s share of national income.”
In addition to the erosion of labor unions, Kristal found that rising unemployment as well as increasing imports from less-developed countries contributed to the decline in labor’s share.
“All of these factors placed U.S. workers in a disadvantageous bargaining position versus their employers,” said Kristal, who also demonstrated that while employers gained most of the benefits from computerization, much of computer technology’s effect on the decline in labor’s share of national income was indirect, and channeled through its role in reducing unionization. The direct effect of computerization on the decline in labor’s share was relatively modest, Kristal said.
(The author also writes in TPM today — the paper itself seems to be gated.)
One forecasting group predicts that Delaware won’t return to its previous employment peak until 2016. Wish there was more data here, but there you have it. Can anyone see a reasonable path to getting back to healthier employment numbers? And no, tax cuts aren’t the answer.
Tags: Alan Levin, DEDO, Delaware Economy, Jack Markell
Tax increases are the way to go. We have a lot of wealthy people who don’t pay any income taxes on huge chunks of their income thanks to a well developed system of schemes and dodges.
That currently uncollected revenue could fund local stimulus projects that which would in turn make Delaware more attractive to thew types of entraprentuiral ventures which power job growth.
Stop incentivizing business’ to ship jobs overseas. They should be taxed on the way out and taxed with tariffs on the way back in.
Get real trade agreements that are net job gains for the US, not the other way around.
The United States has never had an economic plan like other countries around the world. It is well passed time we had one.
Corporate America has lost its commitment to youth by foregoing training, looking only at those who meet the narrow algorithm of the online application. I have tired listening to business and elected leaders fault the education system for a failure to prepare students for employment. If they truly believe that the only way that America can have a trained workforce is through higher ed, then let corporate America subsidize college or tech training for all! We’ll see how fast the tune changes.
@jason
That currently uncollected revenue could fund local stimulus projects that which would in turn make Delaware more attractive to thew types of entraprentuiral ventures which power job growth.
Serious question: What stimulus projects are you suggesting (assuming the revenue existed) to make Delaware more attractive? While I think school renovation/construction is necessary, we are in a test-sensitive world now, and capital improvements there don’t seem to be exciting anyone. We’re finishing up untying the knots in the roads around Christiana Mall, where do we go from there? We don’t seem to be a candidate for any sort of light rail system (nor are those always particularly attractive). I guess we could do improvements at the Port of Wilmington, but beyond that what are you suggesting?
1) A minor league hockey venue.
2) I’d green up all the public buildings in the state including schools to make them net energy producers within 10 years,
3) I would not sniff at light rail or any other non-car based transportation projects, and
4) The economic benefits of trees are well known.
1) As long as you promise to name it something better than the 87ers, ok?
2) greening public buildings sounds good, but I am not sure how that attracts new business investment
3) the problem with light rail (aside from the fact that few people actually use it) is that a high percentage of the inflow daily into the NCC area is from out of state, which would complicate matters
4) I love trees, you love trees, DuPont has dropped soil science and is spinning it off as a separate company, and I’m not sure Amazon, Astrazeneca, Kraft or anybody else really gives a shit about them
I guess my problem with basing a long-term attractiveness package on infrastructure improvements is that we’re such a small, compact state that there is a limit to how much you can do with that.
If I ran that part of the zoo I’d argue that a world-class school system, real job training, and community policing to make Wilmington in general more attractive would be a better way to go.
This is the Delaware portion of the ASCE scorecard on infrastructure. Not all of these have a pricetag or are Delaware expenditures, but you can start with repair, replacement or demolition of the high hazard dams. Drinking water and wastewater upgrades are vital especially to older sections of NCCo. Structurally deficient or obsolete bridges can be rebuilt. Funding to completely finish the storm water management projects in Southbridge would help, as would implementing some of the Walkable Community plans that several communities have on file with WILMAPCO.
There’s no shortage of projects to be done here.
Your items are valid. The impact of what LaRouche* would call a “science driver” strategy is that the sum is greater than the parts. I guess my point is “have a strategy” or at least a game plan beyond throwing money at Fortune 500 corporations.
(*Even a nut-bag can have one good idea in his life.)
Delaware could embark on a project of burying all of our overhead power lines so that we are less susceptible to power outages. This would provide more reliable power as well as improve the aesthetics of the state.
Love it. Charlie Copeland’s unpaid taxes could probably cover that project.
Delaware’s economy is almost wholly tied to the national economy. Therefore the best thing for Delaware to do for its own economy is to send a better delegation to Congress. We need national infrastructure spending and an increase in minimum wage. Now we are back to the question “Why can’t Blue Delaware elect more progressive representatives?”
Puck wrote:
What, the legislature cannot raise the minimum wage within the state, and Delaware cannot do its own infrastructure projects?
And just when I thought we had a topic that didn’t lead back to Carper’s suckitude.
The source is 2½ years old, but it states that Delaware gets back a whopping 50¢ back out of every $1.00 it sends to Washington on taxes. It would seem to me that my good friends at the Delaware Liberal would be very much in favor of returning more control to the states, and having Washington doing less for them, because y’all are getting royally [Insert slang term for copulated here].
What?
Here’s not what to do. What many governors do, including good old dumb Rick Perry of Texas; go to other states and try to cannibalize their industry by recruiting companies to leave one area for another’s lower taxes, “better” quality of life, etc. This accomplishes nothing long term and builds nothing.
Investment in human capital. By individuals. It’s been the engine/ladder of success throughout our Nation’s history. Waiting for the Man to take care of things dooms you to living on the margins.
yeah, but now all the money we used to have to invest in ourselves is in The Man’s pocket, and he isn’t creating good jobs with it. That’s what that income inequality speech was all about.
Mr Merriman wrote:
Well, it sure seems to have accomplished a lot for Texas! Texas state GDP grew at a faster rate than the nation as a whole, and Texas has recovered all of the jobs lost due to the recession, something that the nation as a whole has not yet done. The state’s unemployment rate has been below the national unemployment rate for 82 straight months.
Now, you might argue that Governor Perry’s policies aren’t all that beneficial when viewed nationally, if much of Texas’ gain is California’s loss, but Mr Perry isn’t President of the United States; he’s Governor of Texas, and his responsibilities are to see to it that Texas thrives, not that Delaware does well.
Of course, “good old dumb Rick Perry” seems to have something that appears to be sorely lacking from so many of my friends on the left: an understanding of economics, and what businesses need and want to thrive and grow. He is selling Texas as a smarter place to do business through a combination of fewer regulations and lower taxes, both on corporations and individuals. Not only has this encouraged some companies to move major parts of their operations to the Lone Star State, but it makes Texas seem to be a better place for business start-ups. The man is dumb like a fox.
Cassandra’s main article stated that:
Well, that global competition looks at how to reduce costs, and “good old dumb Rick Perry,” as Mr Merriman called him, is trying to keep costs lower for businesses, to encourage them to locate in Texas. If that attitude existed nationwide, it might lead to fewer state-to-state relocations, but from a global competition aspect, it might tip the scales a bit more in our favor than they are now.
Cassandra concluded:
Given that Texas recovered it’s previous employment peak by the end of 2011, at least in part due to the state’s lower taxes and friendly business environment, it would seem to me that Cassandra has deliberately excluded what really is part of the answer.
What ?
22.5% of workers in Texas do not have health insurance.
Texas generates the most toxic waste and the most carbon of all of the states.
Texas is 44th in HS graduation rates for students.
Texas has the 4th highest teen pregnancy rate.
And you don’t want to be a woman in Texas:
Texas is Ground Zero for the real road to serfdom — where businesses are free to do what they want (including destroy the environment, pay low wages, maintain unsafe workplaces) because they can count on the fact that the government won’t interfere with their destructiveness. So if that kind of environment appeals to you, then go right ahead. Massachusetts barely felt the effects of the crash and the Quality of Life (as well as the Quality of the Environment and Quality of Life) are remarkably better.
You said it better. I think I’m just going to ban that fucking douche-bag again. His fucking senile gibberish it just getting old.
Mr 330 wrote:
Well, if you don’t want to listen to the truth, that’s up to you!
@Dana “Well, if you don’t want to listen to the truth, that’s up to you!”
Truth? The truth is that Texas really is a sorry place. I used to live in the very best part of Texas (Austin), and even that was second-rate.
Dana might as well be advocating for us to adopt an employee situation like Cambodia or Bangladesh.
Sure… Texas has lots of jobs, but they are not the sort of jobs that most people would want to have. It’s certainly nothing for Texans to be proud of.
Get a hobby pencil dick.
Texas has to pay companies to come to Texas to use low wage labor. It’s a pity and proof that Perry is incompetent, when you spend a fortune to draw low wage jobs. If somebody else ups the ante, those jobs could be gone as quickly.
Dana, In Texas I worked for two businesses, and started three, one from which I retired after 45 years. I know something about starting and running businesses and I know Texas. The overwhelming majority of the new jobs created in Texas are low wage, non-union jobs (a so called right to work state), thus accounting for the dismal median income, huge uninsured population, choking on pollution and getting screwed and often not paid for work performed.
Low taxes? try an 8.5 % sales tax, up to 12.5% in a half dozen urban areas when you combine state, county and city sales taxes, among the highest property taxes in the nation for homeowners, passed onto renters and homeowners and auto insurance that is off the charts compared to most states because the regulatory commissions there protect the corporate owners, not consumers. Utilities? Texas led they way on deregulation and they, mostly privately owned, including water and these rates too are among the highest in the nation. Rick Perry didn’t start all of this and cannot claim credit for both a booming energy industry nationally/internationally driving much of the commerce there nor the healthcare industry driving much of the rest of the commerce because it too exploits its workers, has some of the worst outcomes quality indicators in the nation (though fantastic p.r.) and price inflation that would embarrass a banana republic. Excepting these two sectors, you succeed in Texas in spite of the State government and Rick Perry, not because of them. I know from first hand experience both as a business owner and student of Texas public policy and political junkie.
Oh, and I failed to mention Texas’ highest incarceration rate in nation and entire western world, populating privatized prisons. And do you think, Dana, these folks are rich industrialists? Think again, they are poor, mostly illiterate people failed by their communities and state, who resorted to drug use, petty dealing and petty crime to survive. The big time dealers reside in the gated communities in suburbia.
Tom, the deal in Texas, as you point out, is to offer companies huge cash incentives to move plus work out deals with local (counties, cities) to provide companies long term waivers on property taxes. Example, the city of Houston last year paid Walmart, for one store location, $5 million for “improvements” to the neighborhood while constructing.
@Steve: “a high percentage of the inflow daily into the NCC area is from out of state”
Do you have a figure on that?
When you say “nobody uses” light rail, it’s a generalization. In general, it’s used plenty in areas with high population densities and overloaded road systems. Delaware’s population density is too low to make it work.
On the other hand, there’s no reason for our bus system to suck as hard as ours does.
Stan: Dana lives in Bumfuck, Pa. Texas isn’t the only place that looks attractive from there.
There’s a pretty strong (and ironic) correlation between states that get a lot more back from the federal government than they give and how Republican they vote. The “receiver” states tend to vote for people who yell the most about cutting government.
LG at 12:20.
Dead on.
Geezer,
I don’t have any hard numbers on the out-of-state commuters, but one can stand on Kennett Pike in Greenville between the hours of 4-6 pm & count the cars w/PA tags as they head home for the evening.
@geezer
I’ve seen the numbers but I honestly cannot remember where; they were on the order that roughly four cars came into the Wilmington area daily from PA, MD, and NJ for each car coming from southern parts of DE–hence the reference of the difficulty of any mass transit scheme across state lines.
As for light rail I’ve read far more about failures than successes, but in any event the only thing a light rail system could do in DE would be to connect Dover and Wilmington, and I agree with you that a functional bus system would make a lot more sense.
Assuming that I haven’t been banned, I’ll note a statement by Mr Elite which fairly well summarizes the attitude here:
To me, any (legal) work is good; I honor the man whose job it is to clean the porta-potties on construction sites, the person whose job it is to dig footings or pick up the garbage, who has to pump out septic tanks or clean grain silos or work in a dry cleaner or wait tables or shingle roofs. Those are people who might not have the jobs of which they dreamed when they were in high school, might not have the jobs that they want, but who are still doing honest and honorable work that needs to be done.
We can’t all be plant managers or IT technicians or financial executives.
If you look at the broader measures of unemployment, Texas’ U-6 rate of 11.5% is too high, but it’s lower than the nation’s 14.1$, Delaware’s 13.7% and, for comparison, very liberal California’s 17.8%. The U-3/U-4 gap, which measures people who would be looking for work if they were not so discouraged, Texas’ 0.4% gap is smaller than the US’s 0.5% and California’s 0.6%. Apparently, not only are a greater percentage of Texans able to find jobs, but, as undesirable as Mr Elite thinks Texas’ jobs are, a smaller percentage of Texans are discouraged than either Americans as a whole, or liberal Californians.
Comments above have complained that Texas’ drop out rate is too high — and it is — and that Texas is too large a carbon emitter, and all sorts of terrible, terrible things, but to a man who doesn’t have a job, to a woman wondering how she’s going to pay the bills, all of those things fall far behind the concern of having a job and a paycheck. Texas isn’t perfect, and Texas has problems, but those problems are less critical because more people have jobs.
If the United States as a whole had Texas’ unemployment rate, there would be an additional 1,279,000 Americans employed. That would solve a whole host of problems.
40% of Texas Job Growth Went to Illegal Immigrants
Now if Texas could manage to just employ US citizens you might have a point about their employment rate. And if they could do it without throwing money at business (and underfunding their school systems), they’d have a genuine miracle.
Why Cassandra, were I to search this fine site, would I find you right there with the nativist crowd, demanding that we Close The Borders?
What does that have to do with anything? Other than the fact that you can’t defend it.
Dana: It’s much cheaper to do business if your state doesn’t give a shit if its fertilizer plants blow up. You want to live there, move there. You want us to adopt that fucked-up, people-last attitude, you’re going to get a fight. You’re nothing but a corporate suck-up who has no realization how many people’s shoulders he’s standing on while he trumpets how tall he is.
Just pointing out a (probable) inconsistency. 🙂
However, I break with most conservatives on immigration; I say that we have illegal immigration because we want illegal immigration. The immigrants come to the US looking for work, and it seems that they are finding that work, in Texas as well as other places. That’s why I say we want illegal immigration: not only are employers willing to hire the immigrants, but consumers are willing to patronize businesses which hire the immigrants. How many conservatives of even the most ardent “close the border” persuasion either demand to see documentation from businesses that all of their employees are legal before buying their products, or just plain do not patronize businesses with Hispanic-looking employees? I’ve never heard of that ever happening, and even if it does, it must to be pretty rare. We vote to shut down illegal immigration every two years at the ballot box, but vote for illegal immigration virtually every day with our economic choices.
And, of course, I’ve already said, many times, that I respect anybody who is willing to work for a living, and the immigrants come here to work.
Well, Mr Geezer, this thread started concerning how we could increase employment opportunities, and I have pointed out that employment opportunities have been higher in Texas and other places with lower taxes and fewer regulations.
Higher taxes, regulations and other burdens come with real costs, and those costs are currently in job opportunities. You might think that they shouldn’t, but the facts indicate that they do.
Of course, it’s pretty easy to be for higher taxes and more regulations even if they do come at the cost of fewer jobs being available, when it isn’t your job that’s at stake.
Easy for a Pennsylvanian to say.
Higher taxes, regulations and other burdens come with real costs, and those costs are currently in job opportunities. You might think that they shouldn’t, but the facts indicate that they do.
Actually, they don’t. Because your so-called facts don’t explain places like Massachusetts or Silicon Valley or Seattle or Northern VA or Montgomery County, MD.
I say that we have illegal immigration because we want illegal immigration.
Because employers want a compliant, cheap and easily exploited labor force.
@Cassandra.. …or Europe. The willful blindness is predicable.
No kidding — while we want to get closer to the kind of places where it is attractive to live and work, Dana and his ilk want us to be Bangladesh.
Man, if only we treated/paid every American worker like an illegal immigrant, think how much money everyone could make!
It’s funny how they always shy away from explaining WHY companies and bosses wouldn’t take us right back to 1890 factory conditions if ever given half a chance.
They want Alabama and Texas to be Bangladesh while they benefit from the fruits of the enlightenment in blue states like Pennsylvania.
@Dana “I honor the man whose job it is to clean the porta-potties on construction sites, the person whose job it is to dig footings or pick up the garbage, who has to pump out septic tanks or clean grain silos or work in a dry cleaner or wait tables or shingle roofs. Those are people who might not have the jobs of which they dreamed when they were in high school, might not have the jobs that they want, but who are still doing honest and honorable work that needs to be done.”
Do you honestly think these were the jobs I was referring to?
Mrs m wrote:
Really? Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland are the homes to a huge number of government employees, which tremendously skews the numbers. Silicon Valley has great numbers, as the primary area for computer technology, but California as a whole has some of the worst numbers in the country. Seattle, likewise, has some great numbers due to being fortunate to have some top employers, but, taken as a whole, these places are very much the exception to the rule.
Waste Management was headquartered in the Pyrite State; they moved their corporate headquarters to Texas because costs, including taxes, were lower. Several other companies have done the same thing.
Businesses attempt to calculate costs and potential profitability and risk; that’s not news to anyone. If an area increases costs, it negatively impacts potential profitability, and, overall, reduces the willingness of existing businesses and potential entrepreneurs to take the risks associated with expanding production and hiring new employees. That’s not PhD stuff, but Economics 101.
Mr Elite asked:
I took a stab at it, picking some of the least pleasant jobs of which I could think. If you meant others, please, be specific.
Really? Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland are the homes to a huge number of government employees, which tremendously skews the numbers. Silicon Valley has great numbers, as the primary area for computer technology,
So we’re just going to dismiss the successful knowledge economy because we can’t figure out how to make them into Bangladesh yet.
they moved their corporate headquarters to Texas because costs, including taxes, were lower.
You are talking about Waste Connections. Whose real cost of doing business is caught up in the waste hauling business they do all over the US. Moving from CA to TX is by their own admission a result of needing to be more centrally located and because he didn’t want to pay taxes. And because the CA legislature was broken. Which isn’t a problem now that there are fewer Republicans in office. But a waste hauling business moving to TX isn’t exactly the world’s biggest news, since their biggest competitor — Waste Management– is located there.
To a large extent, that’s bullshit. The Australians pay a minimum wage of $16.88 for adults (lower for teens) and McDonalds still does a bangup business there. Heck, McDonald’s does a bangup business in NYC, if you think that costly real estate is an issue. If you are moving to be closer to your customers, that is one thing, but most businesses locate where they think they’ll best meet their customers. Goldman Sachs is still headquartered in NYC, as is MetLife, Pfizer and others. Being where you think your customers are is also Economics 101.
“I have pointed out that employment opportunities have been higher in Texas and other places with lower taxes and fewer regulations.”
No, they haven’t. Texas is the only success story you can point to. Wisconsin and Florida have been more typical — lots of giveaways to business and the rich, little to no employment gains.
It doesn’t take much in the way of bullshit to impress people like you, Dana. To paraphrase the Floyd, you’re just another dick in the wall.
Well, Mr Geezer, if I am just so wrong, wrong, wrong, why is it that the liberal economics policies of the President have failed so miserably, and why is it that liberal bastions like California are doing so poorly?
When you look at state-by-state unemployment numbers, 14 of the best 21 (odd number picked because of a tie) were red states, and that 21st state, Wisconsin, while it was, unfortunately, carried by President Obama, also not only elected a Republican Governor in Scott Walker, but retained him, by a bigger margin, in the recall election, because he kept his promises to balance the budget without raising taxes. And when you look at the 13 states (including DC) with 8.0% unemployment or greater, 8 of them were blue states.
As much as you want to somehow explain away the numbers, the numbers are still there: the states with the more conservative economic policies are, in general, showing lower unemployment rates than those with more liberal state governments.
@Dana “Wisconsin, while it was, unfortunately, carried by President Obama, also not only elected a Republican Governor in Scott Walker, but retained him, by a bigger margin, in the recall election, because he kept his promises to balance the budget without raising taxes. And when you look at the 13 states (including DC) with 8.0% unemployment or greater, 8 of them were blue states.”
You want to hold up Wisconsin as your best example????
It ranks 34th in job growth. Next door, Minnesota is cleaning their clock.
Simply put, Wisconsin is the poster child of Conservatism FAIL.
Read this:
“Right vs. Left in the Midwest”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/right-vs-left-in-the-midwest.html
“Minnesota and Wisconsin are good places to compare modern progressivism and the new right.”