Last week I noted that after thirty years of outperforming the national average, Minnesota’s unemployment rate matched the rest of the nation’s. Well, the hits keep coming.
In a state that prides itself on its economic prowess, we’re looking oh, so ordinary.
Minnesotans, accustomed to finishing near the top of various quality-of-life rankings, landed at No. 46 for growth in personal income last year, according to numbers released Tuesday by the U.S. Commerce Department.
That’s below states like Oklahoma, Mississippi and Louisiana. And it trails New Jersey and Wisconsin - among others - where incomes are similar to Minnesota. For the U.S., personal income grew 5.2 percent in 2006 compared with the previous year. In Wisconsin, it was 4.3 percent. Minnesota, ahem, was 3.8 percent.
But wait, I thought we were OUT of the top ten in taxes!!! Didn’t business get the memo? We’re supposed to be doing BETTER now that we not held back by those onerous taxes.
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Could it be that the majprity of the jobs that Gov. Pawlenty said were created over the last 2 years in Minnesota were jobs that paid less than $10 an hour???
I am curious as to what the Personal Income percentage numbers are between Manufacturing, Professional Occupations, High Tech, and Service Industry jobs would be, and where the greatest growth was in each area. That would certainly determine overall Personal Income growth average.
Zack,
My question is: how do high taxes equate to higher growth in wages? Once the DFL pushes their tax increases through, people will see a negative growth in their wages. In other words, they will be taking home less money than they did before.
The real question is whether or not the ENTIRE DFL policy package will result in better employers offering better jobs. Also, what kind of lurking variables could be behind it? Coming off a large growth period? Collapses in sector areas where Minnesota was once strong (bioscience/tech)?
It’s not just taxes, it’s the overall business climate. There is so little effort by policymakers to make the state hospitable to anything outside of industries drawing on Minnesota’s educated workforce, and even there it’s a tougher sell these days.
I spent my life watching Honeywell go from an almost all-Minnesota company to one that gradually started moving employees to other states to where when they finally left for NJ, aside from the big corporate types that remained here to the end, almost the whole company opted to manufacture things elsewhere, namely AZ.
Companies pay attention to taxes, but they also look to things like labor regulation and cost of energy, and the legislature doesn’t seem to even know what it takes to bring business to the state (aside from trying to keep up with the Joneses on education). Instead, they’re busy trying to tell companies they can’t even sell a building they’re not using anymore. We had a good foothold into HMOs, and then the AG went on some big crusade to punish them. The larger message from all these little things taken together: it’s comparatively a risky place to set up shop. Not bad (quality of life is good, it’s not super expensive) but it’s going to lose more head-to-head picks than it wins.
I think we have some real advantages over an IL, WA, or PA, but we’re a tough sell vis-a-vis Iowa (also with a fine educational system) or SD (look at what Sioux Falls is doing these days), let alone a Virginia where both parties put attracting business as job #1,2 and 3 of their existence.
If you are going to compete in the race to the bottom for the lowest taxes. lowest wages, lowest environmental standards, lowest education, you can’t win. There is always someone, somewhere who will work for less, either in this country or another. Minnesota became a leader in the upper midwest because of the educated workforce and high quality of life. The move of Honeywell out of state had much more to do with the purchase of the company by Allied-Signal than tax issues here. Corporations are no longer interested in what’s best for their community or even country but only in next quarter’s profits. Market capitalists will say that’s ok. Do we really want to return to the gilded age that we had around 1900? Income inequality is approaching those days. Our middle class is eroding and our quality of life is declining and corporations are gleefully pocketing record profits for the most part. The American dream of the post WWII era is dying at the altar of corporate greed.
If Democrats care so much about the middle class, why do they want to increase taxes by $4 billion, which will increase taxes by $1,200 for the average middle class family? Why is an increase of 9% in government spending not enough? Most middle class families have to live within their means, not vastly exceed them, as the DFL-controlled Legislature wants to do.
Increasing taxes on businesses will not make this state a more attractive place for them to do business. We already have a highly educated workforce. The rate of return on the amount of new spending the Democrats want will only be marginal because the level of education in this state is already high. Most businesses have already accounted for that fact. Further, spending more money does not always achieve better results. One need look no further than the Minneapolis school district, which receives the highest amount of per pupil aid in the state (nearly $10,000), yet does not have the highest test scores.
A 9% increase in government spending, which is what the budget surplus permits the Legislature to do, is enough. Government should follow the lead of the middle class and live within it means.
The constant comparison of Twin Cities costs per pupil and lower costs outstate is misleading at best. The oft-cited $10,000 per pupil is the key revealer of this misleading spin.
The costs per pupil for a homogenous community of native English speakers is far, far lower than the costs to educate non-native English speakers. Add in poverty, crime, drugs, gangs, and other factors adding to instability, and anyone can see that you’re comparing apples and oranges.
What is the alternative? Abandon public education for urban areas? Or simply recognize that costs depend on external environmental factors?
The comparison between the Minneapolis school district and other school districts is not misleading; it’s a fact. Regardless, you make my point — that is that it is the vain hubris of big government liberals to believe that money will solve every problem when, clearly, as you point out, some of these factors are beyond the ability of government (or, in this instance, schools) to solve. The alternative is to provide more, not less, opportunities and choice for the parents and their students who attend the Minneapolis school district. Clearly, many of them want more opportunities and choice as they have opted to leave the school district, which is evidenced by the high concentration of charter schools in the district and the attendant exodus of students from the Minneapolis school district to those charter schools.
Not one single liberal I know thinks that “throwing money” will solve problems. Money is like gas in the tank - you need it to get where you are going, but without workable, efficient, effective solutions - like tires, steering wheel, and brakes - you won’t get where you’re going.
The big problem with tax whiners on the right is they have lost their issue focus. On an issue by issue basis, the right has some good ideas. Working together, we can implement some of these and improve public education.
But the right has instead turned to whining about taxes and cutting the throat of government, public education included. Defunding NCLB is only one example of the right’s animosity toward public education. I believe this hatred stems from their lost arguments about sex education and prayer. Since they can’t have these, public education must go.
NCLB, if funded and tuned for reasonable test scoring, could be a boon - one of those good ideas the right comes up with occasionally. But defunded, it is nothing more than a knife to eviscerate the public school - labelling them as failures and driving parents to demand vouchers. And vouchers, of course, are little more than a naked grab for public tax dollars by churches.
Public schools provide the best chance for most Americans to climb out of poverty, say no to drugs and crime, and become productive citizens. Take away this ladder, and you’ll see a rise in crime, poverty, and an increase in the disparity between the haves and the have-nots.
Everyone deserves a chance at the American dream, not just those born into stable communities. It is in our own selfish best interests to support public schools and see that they succeed, if we want a free, equality-based America in the future.
Brian,
I can see you’re one of these liberals who has never left the concrete jungle to see how the rest of the country, or in this case - state, lives.
Brian, we have drugs, poverty, non-English speaking students, and other issues of instability in rural Minnesota. We don’t spend $13,000 a student like the Minneapolis school system does and our rural schools also have a higher graduation rate than Minneapolis. The point isn’t that we need to spend in rural Minnesota like we spend in Minneapolis. The point is that more money does not translate into a better education. The worst educated kids in the State of Minnesota come out of the highest spending school districts.
Republicans care about education. We just don’t buy into the Education Minnesota propaganda that the DFL has literally bought into. Education Minnesota spent over $2.7 million electing Democrats last year. The DFL’s recent tax scheme is payback to Education Minnesota.
Check your facts, Chris.
The Minnesota Education website details the cost per pupil, and the number of non-English speaking and free or reduced price lunch students, on a school by school basis.
Those facts show that large urban areas have far, far more diverse and challenging student populations than rural areas. This translates directly into increased costs.
Yes, rural areas have real drug and crime problems. I have lived in small farming communities, mid-sized cities, and large urban areas. There is a huge difference between two or three families with a problem in a community, and two or three hundred families.
I don’t deny that Republicans care about education. But do they care about education for ALL? Do they care about PUBLIC, FREE education? Do they care about UNBIASED, NON-RELIGIOUS, FACT-BASED education? These are the questions, and the answers haven’t been flattering to the right.
Brian,
I’m sorry but there are plenty of non-English speaking students in rural Minnesota. We have Spanish speaking students. We have students from Somalia. We have students on free and reduced price lunches too. I don’t care what Minnesota Education says, Brian. I live in rural Minnesota and I see the kids.
As for the rest of your argument, it’s clear that you like the failed, liberal policies of Education Minnesota that leave the kids in Minneapolis schools unprepared for the outside world. You talk about fact-based education as if the kids who choose to be home schooled or go to a parochial or private school don’t know facts. You smear of other, more successful forms of education while you defend the failing education policies of Education Minnesota.
You don’t care about the facts published on the official state of Minnesota Department of Education website?
Very well then.
Brian,
I thought you said Education Minnesota - the teacher’s union - not the Department of Education. You did not specify that you were referring to the Department of Education and I misunderstood where your information was coming from. Also, you did not provide a link to the information.
That said, you didn’t address the rest of the concerns I raised. Why is it that Minneapolis schools spend twice the amount of money per student than most rural schools yet they have the lowest test scores and graduation rates and the highest drop out rates? It certainly isn’t for a lack of funding.