Americans are moving in droves from the northern and midwestern states to the south, resulting in a major economic shift in the United States, according to researchers at the American Legislative Exchange Council.
That was the major finding from the latest edition of ALEC’s “Rich States, Poor States,” which chronicles just how much taxes and economic policies affect economic growth in the United States and ranks the states based upon their own economy policies.
“We’ve seen some big movements across the states,” Jonathan Williams, one of the publication’s three authors, said on a conference call discussing the report.
According to the report’s authors, this transformation is part of an overall trend that has developed over the past few years as a result of the differences between the taxing and spending policies in those states.
“States like Texas and Tennessee, states with no income tax at all, are real winners. States especially in the south are seeing a real radical transformation where a few states tried to abolish income taxes,” Stephen Moore, an economist and the founder of the Club for Growth, said on the call.
“The difference in policies is that states like Illinois, California, New Jersey, the Northeast states—Maine and Vermont, have been perusing Obamanomics. States in the south and in the Sunbelt have been pursuing Reaganomics,” he added, noting that the difference between the two provides for a big difference in results.
While Moore did concede that it wasn’t a one-to-one ratio between the regions, he did say that the report has found that nearly one million jobs have left California and nearly one million jobs have shown up in Texas.
“There’s a massive shift in economic power and wealth to states like Texas and away from California,” Moore said.
As far as the overall rankings, Utah kept its hold on the number one spot from the fifth edition. Maryland was considered to be “one of the biggest losers” in this year’s report, thanks in part to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) raising taxes a whopping 32 times over the past year. It dropped 15 spots from its 2012 ranking.
