Taxes, Unionization Correlate with Unemployment
Jim Lindgren says that states with high state income taxes and/or large numbers of unionized workers also tend to have the highest levels of unemployment.
In the six states with the highest unemployment rates, the average top state income tax bracket is 8.05%. All but Michigan have marginal tax rates of at least 7% (and Michigan has a very high unionization rate).
On the other hand, the average top tax bracket for the six states with the lowest unemployment is only 4.4%, with 4 of the 6 states having a top marginal rate of 5.54% or less.
Further, union representation averages 14.1% in the six high unemployment states…
Taxes and unions are both obvious barriers to effective competition, so one would expect the correlation that Lindgren identifies. Whether you approve of his level of academic rigor or not, it’s undeniable that he’s onto something.
Democrats’ stated intention to increase unionization nationwide doesn’t bode well for economic reform given its impact on states such as Michigan where the UAW and its ilk have all but driven the Big 3 out of business.
Likewise with Mr. Obama’s massive deficit spending plan. Someone someday will have to pay the piper for the $1T+ deficit that the administration is planning to ram through Congress. When the big-spenders’ roulette wheel stops a-spinnin’, woe to the generation that has to pay for their gamble.
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all the more reason to fully support the forced open balloting :: eyes rolling ::
It is my jaded opinion that the Great Depression was brought on, and continued for slong, because those who produced the goods and services of the economy could not afford to purchase said goods and services.
Whatever Franklin Roosevelt’s policies were in the 1930s, the growth of unions such as the UAW, UMW, and others laid the groudwork for addressing the problem mentioned above.
However, NO ONE in the 30s or 40s would have conceived of the excesses of union power over the decades since. The major unions are just as out of touch with what is going on as Wall St., which they resemble in some ways (who wants competition?).
Mr. Lindgrin may be on to something, but where I live (western North Carolina) is proof of the opposite of his research. With low taxes and non-union labor, this area was home to a plethora of textile and furniture manufacturing. They are all gone now, and the high unemployment can be blamed more on the “free” trade agreements than other factors.
If you REALLY want to see high unemployment and economic stagnation, wait unil Comrade Chairman Waxman and his band of nanny-state nazis impliment this “cap and trade” rubbish. That alone will do more to destroy economic stability than anything thought of in the last century.
Sorry for my absence, MVG, the eyes are trying to make a comeback. I never stop complaining though!
“Sorry for my absence, MVG, the eyes are trying to make a comeback. I never stop complaining though!
”
Welcome back young man! Hope you’re feeling a bit better! Good to see you here again.
“However, NO ONE in the 30s or 40s would have conceived of the excesses of union power over the decades since. The major unions are just as out of touch with what is going on as Wall St., which they resemble in some ways (who wants competition?).”
I really advise you to read some works from classical liberals, libertarians and conservatives back then. I was actually reading one such book today, published in 1937 if I am not mistaken, in which the author complains about unions and warns they will hijack the entire system if allowed to.
To be fair, these stats don’t elucidate cause and effect.
And wouldn’t a conservative as concerned about higher taxes regardless of union membership?
I doubt many fiscal conservatives would join a Union C3
I sure as heck wouldn’t. They had their time and place – and that time and place is in the past.
Of course you may run into situations where whether you join the union or not you have to pay the dues just to work there. And in this, sure a Conservative would fall in both categories.