What advise might you give to your children as to where to live and work? Think of just six states. Not New York. Young people in New York want to bail due to high costs of living.
Six states — Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nevada, Florida and Wyoming — are both right-to-work states and have no income tax.
Between 2000 and 2008, 4.8 million American moved from forced-union states to right-to-work states. That’s one person moving every minute of every day.
A 2003 Journal of Labor Research article by Robert Reed found that wages rose faster in states that don’t require union membership.
As of today there are 22 right-to-work states and 28 union-shop states. Over the past decade (2000-09) the right-to-work states grew faster in nearly every respect than their union-shop counterparts: 54.6% versus 41% in gross state product, 53.3% versus 40.6% in personal income, 11.9% versus 6.1% in population and 4.1% versus -0.6% in payrolls.
So, tell your children that if they want to keep the money they make and experience more freedom in general — New York, New York is not the place to go. There are a lot of wonderful places in America to work and live. Six states particularly offer the most freedom: states with right-to-work laws and no income tax.
DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
