Connecticut and Other States with Unhappy Residents and Population Loss

Russell Blair wrote an article for the Hartford Courant about the residents' views about living in Connecticut that makes it clear that the high tax and Democrat-controlled state is poorly governed. 

The Connecticut Economic Resource Center surveyed state residents and found that 47% of them said they plan to leave the state within the next five years!  It also revealed that only 44% agreed that Connecticut was a good place to live and raise a family.

A Gallup poll in 2016 had found that 46% of Connecticut residents said they would like to leave the state given the opportunity.  At that time, the state was tied with the high-tax state of New Jersey in that statistic as the state with the most residents desirous of exodus.

The U.S. Census Bureau believes the state lost 1,215 residents in the year following 1 July 2017.  It was one of 9 states with a population loss in that one-year period.  The other population losers were New York, Illinois, West Virginia, Louisiana, Hawaii, Mississippi, Alaska, and Wyoming.  Puerto Rico was another loser.  Note that this period was one of general excellent economic growth in the United States.

A state report from May 2017 says that Connecticut residents have been leaving the state in accelerating numbers since the Great Recession.  A poll in October 2017 noted that the percentage of people with incomes above $150,000 a year considering a move to another state was much higher than the that from the population as a whole.

Connecticut has recovered only 80.8% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession, making it one of a very few states which has not recovered all of the jobs lost.

West Virginia and Wyoming lost many jobs thanks to the anti-coal policies of the Obama administration.  The refusal to allow oil and gas developments on federally owned lands made it impossible for many new jobs in that industry to be developed in Wyoming and Alaska.  The Obama policies suppressing the construction of pipelines hurt both West Virginia and Wyoming as potential oil and gas producers.  Wyoming and Alaska are hurt by excessive federal land ownership.  Anti-mining rulings by the federal government have prevented much mining activity in Alaska.

The status of freedom in the states is another big factor in economic growth of a state and in the general happiness of state residents.  The Cato Institute Ranking of Freedom in the States ranks Connecticut #33, New York #50, Illinois #35, New Jersey #47, West Virginia #34, Louisiana #30, Mississippi #40, Wyoming #38, Alaska #15, and Hawaii #49.  Only the Alaska rating suggests that a lack of freedom in the state and local governments in that state is not a factor in its loss of population.

Another factor that hurts a state in population retention and growth is the quality of K-12 education adjusted for student hetergeneity and expenditures adjusted for the cost of living, which people have not been able to look-up until recently, but they do sense it.  A Cato Institute Policy Analysis of 13 November 2018 by Liebowitz and Kelly has provided such an analysis recently, though it is little known.  In their ranking of the 50 states and DC, Connecticut ranks 38.

Consider the other recent population losers and their rankings in the Cato Institute K-12 education analysis:  New York ranks 46, Illinois ranks 40, West Virginia is 51, Louisiana is 47, Hawaii is 11, Mississippi is 25, Alaska is 48, and Wyoming is 37.  An expensive and poor job of educating children in a state will have a strong job suppression effect and make a state a poor place for a family to raise children.  Of the states losing population, only Hawaii is doing a good job of educating children. Mississippi is very average, but it has a bad reputation as a result of irrational ratings with widespread use such as the U.S. News & World Report rating.  When a state does a poor and inefficient job of educating children, it is likely to do a poor and inefficient job of all other aspects of governance.

The lesson for Connecticut and the other population losers is that poor governance has a very significant effect on people in pursuit of their happiness.  High taxes, poor education for children, excessive and abusive business regulation, the general state of freedom, and high rates of violence and theft are very effective in creating an unhappy populace.

What States Are Americans Moving To or Fleeing From?

United Van Lines does an annual assessment of the percentage of households moving to and from each of the states and Washington, DC.  It is the largest mover in the USA.  Overall, the general story of which states are most desirable and which are least desirable for 2014 is told in this map of the USA:

The ten most desirable states with the largest percentage of households moving to them are:

Oregon                       66.4% Inbound
South Carolina           61.4%
North Carolina           60.5%
Vermont                     59.4%
Florida                        58.9%
Nevada                       57.3%
Texas                          57.0%
District of Columbia  57.0%
Oklahoma                  56.8%
Idaho                         55.5%
Colorado                   55.1%

Nebraska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Wyoming, Delaware,  and South Dakota all had slightly more households moving in than moving out in 2014 and are listed in order.  Tennessee had 50.0% moving in and 50.0% moving out.  The rest of the states were losers in 2014.

The worst losers are:

New Jersey               64.9% Outbound
New York                 64.1%
Illinois                      63.4%
North Dakota           60.5%
West Virginia           60.1%
Ohio                         59.0%
Kansas                     58.2%
New Mexico            57.4%
Pennsylvania           56.8%
Connecticut             56.7%
Massachusetts         56.7%
Utah                        56.0%
Virginia                   55.5%
Michigan                 55.4%
Mississippi              55.2%
Kentucky                 55.0%

[Of these states, it should be noted that North Dakota and Utah were among the most stellar states in creating jobs over the entire time span from December 2007 to December 2014.  The loss of jobs in North Dakota in 2014 is likely due to the drop in the price of oil in the later part of that year.  Comment added on 20 Feb 2015.]  The remaining minor losing states are listed from worst to not so bad -- Minnesota, Indiana, Wisconsin, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Alabama, Arkansas, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

It should be noted that the United Van Lines survey is more accurate with respect to established and larger wealth households than with young people who may live with few furnishings in small apartments in major cities, such as Manhattan.

The highest fraction of households moving out for retirement reasons was the Northeast, with more than one out of four moving for retirement.  The highest fraction moving in for retirement was nearly one out of three moves into the Mountain States.

DC remains a popular moving destination due to the growth of the federal government, but the good news is that while from 2008 to 2012 it was number one, in 2013 it fell to #4, and in 2014 it fell further to #7.

With the exception of Delaware and DC, the entire Northeast from Virginia to Maine lost households due to more outbound moves than inbound moves.  The Midwest states from Ohio and West Virginia to Minnesota and Iowa also all lost population.  I believe these areas are being harmed by the anti-growth and anti-business attitudes and governmental policies particularly prevalent in these areas.  They are also harmed by insufficient warming in those areas as more and more people take the opportunity to move to areas with warmer climates.  How odd that federal government policy wishes to maintain colder temperatures in these areas, as do Progressive Elitists, yet most people voting with their feet seek warmer climates.  Apparently, the real catastrophe of warmer climates is that people view them as desirable!

The Right to Work: The Economic Advantage

22 states are Right to Work states in which unions cannot make it a condition of work for a worker to join the labor union or pay some fee assessed by the union based on what it claims is its value to the nonmember worker.  Right to Work states since 1990 have demonstrated much greater economic performance in jobs creation and in the growth of state GDP.  Here are the comparisons between highly unionized and union shop states vs. the least unionized and Right to Work states:

The 22 Right to Work states have produced more new private sector jobs than the more populated 28 states fostering the union shop.  The Right to Work states created new jobs in the critical private sector at a rate 2.3 times that of the Union Shop states.  The least unionized states are increasing their state GDPs at much higher rates than the most unionized states. 

Richard Vedder of Ohio University noted in a Cato Journal publication (Winter 2010) that:

In 1970, 28.5 percent of Americans lived in right-to-work states; by 2008, the proportion had risen to nearly 40 percent (to over 121 million).  The population living in right-to-work states more than doubled, compared with a modest 25.7 percent increase in non right-to-work states. Moreover, only a small proportion (about 15 percent) of the increase in the proportion of Americans in right-to-work states is due to states newly enacting right-to-work laws. Indeed, in the last 20 years, only one state (Oklahoma) has adopted a new right-to-work law. Most of the
population gains arose from greater population increases in right-to-work states.

 Professor Vedder made a mistake in his comment about the affect of Oklahoma becoming a Right to Work state in 2001.  Oklahoma only had a population of 3.687 million in 2009.  Using that figure rather than a slightly lower population in 2008, Oklahoma's conversion only produced about 10% of the increase in the  proportion of the U.S. population in Right to Work states. 

Between 2000 and 2008, 4.7 million Americans moved from Union Shop states to Right to Work states.  Moreover, a larger fraction of the population chooses to work in the Right to Work states than in the Union Shop states.  The only four states with over 70% of the working age population working in 2007 were Right to Work states.  The national average then was 63%.  People in Right to Work states appear to prefer working more than those in Union Shop states.  Greater freedom of association on the job should make work more appealing.  That higher work force participation may also be due to the fact that people in the Right to Work states had a 10% greater growth in personal income between 1993 and 2009.  They also gave rise to the creation of 60% of all new businesses, despite having only about 40% of the population at the end of that time period and less earlier.

Public opinion has swung strongly against the unions being empowered to put workers under pressure to join a union as a condition of employment.  Only 11.9% of the work force is now union and the private sector workforce union rate is only 6.9%.  Legislation to become a Right to Work state is being considered in Wisconsin, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Missouri among other states.  For fear of the union hubbub and a desire to emphasize state debt control, Gov. Mitch Daniels decided that the Right to Work bill that had passed the Indiana state lower legislative branch was not a priority.  So it is on hold.

Missouri which was heavily unionized (25%) in 1978 when it last considered becoming a Right to Work state, was only 11.2% union in 2010.  If you count only those who are actually working, only 9.9% are union members.  In other words, if you are a union member, you are more likely than others to be unemployed.  Missouri is largely surrounded by Right to Work states, such as Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee.  Only Illinois and Kentucky of its neighbors are Union Shop states.  The legislature is lining up in favor of becoming a Right to Work state, though the Democrat Governor is expected to veto such a bill.  It is being considered for a statewide referendum to get around that.  Testimony by a company site consultant that 75% of the companies coming to him say they would prefer a site in a Right to Work state and 50% say they will not consider a site in a Union Shop state at all, had a telling effect upon the Republican committee heads.

Unions like to point out that family incomes are higher in Union Shop states, but when union dues are subtracted and the lower cost of living of Right to Work states is taken into account, family income is actually higher in the Right to Work states.  Clearly, the trend is solidly in their direction.  Business growth and jobs creation in the Right to Work states and out-migration from the Union Shop states will continue to put pressure on the Union Shop states to allow more freedom of association in employment.  Of course, many will long continue to be held hostage by unions, but they will pay a huge price.