Monday, August 9, 2010
Blue states must be doing something right!
Republicans are fond of complaining of big government, high taxes and deficits and most of the blue states (Democratic states) represent the antithesis of the Republican economic ideal. Yet when comparing the actual economic performance of the red states versus the blue states we see that Republican pleadings leave a lot to be desired.
That's because the economic performance of the blue states come out on top by a large margin. Of the top 10 richest states ranked according to per capita GDP, nine were blue states. The average per capita GDP in those states exceeded the national average by 22%.
In contrast, of the 10 poorest states seven were red states, where the averge per capita GDP fell below the national average by 25%.
In total, the average per capita GDP of the red states fell below the national average by 11%, while average per capita GDP of the blue states exceeded the national average by 1.0%.
These results are even more striking when you take into consideration the fact that the red states on average received more Federal transfer payments than the blue states. Without that Federal support the red states would have scored much worse. And, similarly, without the net transfers paid by the blue states, their incomes would have been higher.
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4 comments:
Gini coefficient state by state
The higher the Gini coefficient the greater the inequality.
It will be interesting to see the results after the 2010 census data are processed and published.
Mike / Matt
I tried to leave a comment at the NYTIMES to Krugman's Monday post which exalted the Clinton surplus even though there were no Bush tax cuts.
My comment pointed out that Krugman fails to show that the surplus was done in the last year of Clinton's final term and how it pulled money back into the Real Economy and created a recession.
The surplus was not there the whole 2 terms.
Evidently my comment never made it, probably because Kruggie is not aware of this.
And he's a nobel prize winner ?
Also, most of the richest states are cold weather states, while most of the poorest states are warm weather states, so being warm must make you poor. Swing and a miss again, dopey. CORRELATION DOES NOT PORTEND CAUSALITY. All of these states set into motion becoming rich or poor states MANY MANY years ago before they were red or blue (or in that matter before republicans or democrats were the parties they currently are). Hell, CA voted for Nixon 3 times, Reagan twice, Ford and H.W. Bush each once all in the last 50 years. That's them voting red in 7 of the last 13 elections. And could the causality actually be that receiving all of these gov't transfer payments is actually what's keeping them poor? Maybe? Please don't confuse this for me defending republicans...they're essentially the same as the democrats. I'm just pointing out your flawed logic, that's all.
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