Cato and Conservatives Wrong About Population Trends

Democrats and Population Trends

Let’s set aside the hypocrisy about red states getting a ride off blue states for a moment – maybe they genuinely need that money or red states senators and representatives are better at getting more pork. Just in terms of economic incentives – which is the major slant of the Right – why are so any red state residents reliant on federal dollars if they are an economic conservative/libertarian wunderland. There has been plenty of talk over the last 10 years especially about Democrats and how to frame the debate. That might be a like learning to run in waist deep mud since right-wing voters pay attention to the false and empty slogans of the Right, but very little attention to what they actually do. Republicans are pleased as pigs at the trough at government spending as long as they are the beneficiaries. It has been like this since Nixon in the late 1960s. Some counter-factuals to consider - Behind the Population Shift

The rise of the Sunbelt has two common explanations: one climatic and the other commercial. The climatic, obvious explanation is that it’s the weather, stupid. The commercial explanation, which has a proselytizing undertone, is that places like Texas and Nevada attract companies and people with their lower business taxes and fewer regulations.

The first view emphasizes the outdoors; the second right-to-work laws. If all that we knew was that Sunbelt populations were increasing, it would be impossible to distinguish among these and other theories, but we have evidence on wages, productivity and the price of housing that can help us make sense of the Census.

If economic productivity – created by low regulations or anything else – was causing the growth of Texas and Arizona and Georgia, then these places should have high per capita productivity and wages. Yet per capita state product in Arizona in 2009 was $35,300, 16 percent less than the national average. Per capita state products were $36,700 and $42,500 in Georgia and Texas, respectively.

These figures are far below per capita state products in slow-growing places like Connecticut ($58,500), Massachusetts ($50,600) and New York ($50,200). According to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey, median family incomes were $56,200, $60,800 and $56,600 in Georgia, Nevada and Texas, but $83,000, $81,000 and $66,900 in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York.