Working-Age People ‘Are Leaving’ Big Labor Stronghold States ‘in Droves’

A man holding a box in his hand.


As economist and erstwhile Trump campaign adviser Stephen Moore noted in column earlier this month, the union boss-dominated states carried most easily by the Clinton-Kaine ticket have lost millions of people over the past decade due to net domestic out-migration. And Census data show a disproportionately large share of the outflow consists of working-age people. Image: unitedliberty.org

As economist and erstwhile Trump campaign adviser Stephen Moore noted in a column published early this month, the union boss-dominated states carried most easily by the Clinton-Kaine ticket have lost millions of people over the past decade due to net domestic out-migration. And Census data show a disproportionately large share of the outflow consists of working-age people. Image: unitedliberty.org

Writing for the Washington Times early this month, Stephen Moore, an economist with Freedom Works and recently a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign, pointed out that, among the 10 states handing the widest-margin victories to the Big Labor-backed Hillary Clinton-Tim Kaine ticket in fall’s presidential campaign, all suffered net losses of population due to net domestic out-migration over the past decade.  (See the first link below to read the entire commentary.)

In all of the 10 states in which Clinton-Kaine fared best — California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Connecticut — forced union dues and fees are authorized and promoted. The two biggest population states in this group, California and New York, lost a combined total of 2.75 million residents as a consequence of net domestic out-migration between 2004 and 2014. As Moore concluded: “[P]eople are leaving in droves.”

Moore is absolutely correct to suggest that a lack of economic opportunities and wages and salaries that don’t go far enough when regional living costs and state and local taxes are taken into account are key factors behind the ongoing exodus from forced-unionism stronghold states.

One important evidence that economics, not lifestyle considerations, are deterring moves to the 10 aforementioned states as a group and prompting moves out of them is that their overall population aged 35-54 is sharply declining.

Whereas the nationwide population of people in this age bracket, commonly referred to as the “peak-earning years,” fell by 3.0% from 2005 to 2015 due to the aging of the Baby Boomers, the combined peak-earning-year population of the 10 states that Clinton-Kaine won by the widest margins plummeted by 5.1%, or 70% more than the U.S. average. (See the second link below for more information.)

In sharp contrast, over the past decade the aggregate peak-earning-year population of the 22 states that had Right to Work laws on the books for the whole time actually rose by 3.1% or 1.03 million!

The blue state depression – Washington Time

Population Estimates – American FactFinder – Census.gov

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