In this Boston Globe article, Robert L. Reynolds, the CEO of Putnam Investments, says
I think if you go back over the last 10 years, Massachusetts has lost more jobs than any other state except one. The bad part is we have lost more population between the ages of 18 and 25. It’s all about jobs. Massachusetts needs to be as business friendly as possible. There are more corporate headquarters in Cincinnati than in Boston.
I’m wondering what his source could be for this. A Google search found http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/07/the-u-s-economys-lost-decade/ but that’s a nationwide number. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes total jobs by state, but they don’t seem to have a convenient report for the period discussed. I used the BLS database feature to pull Massachusetts data. We went from 3,324,800 jobs in June 2000 to 3,185,000 in June 2010. So we lost 4 percent of our jobs. It is hard to find a convenient way to compare that to other U.S. states.
And my pet peeve: the discussion of “jobs” as all fungible and equal. Even an arch libertarian must admit that a $60k with benefits job is much more practical for supporting a family than a part-time minimum wage McJob. And on the other end, not everyone has the opportunity to spend decades gaining specialized credentials for most extremely high-paying jobs.
So maybe the metric is “jobs that pay enough in cash and benefits stably to support a middle-class lifestyle with a high school diploma or state school bachelor’s degree.”
Not to go too far outside of the goalposts of acceptable discourse, but in a period of declining jobs, how many immigrants has Massachusetts absorbed?
Hubbert: I’m not sure why you think that someone being a libertarian would predispose them to disregard the spending power of a worker. From what I’ve read, much of what libertarians seek is to increase the after-tax spending power of citizens (since the government would be spending less, individuals could spend more). Of course, libertarianism as a political philosophy in the U.S. doesn’t make any sense (it would hardly serve the interest of the current government if its revenues were cut in half and therefore we will never have anything remotely resembling a libertarian system), so libertarianism is mostly useful as a straw man for people who want to scare fellow citizens, e.g., “If you don’t vote for me and give me 50% of your income, the libertarians will come and take away your free retirement, health care, food safety, etc.”
JJT: I’m sure that we haven’t had too many immigrants compared to some states, but on the other hand you could argue that’s because we don’t have too many jobs. If we had a lot of jobs, immigrants would migrate here.
For whom does the economy of Massachusetts (or the United States) exist?
JJT: Your question is easy! It exists for the benefit of government workers and the politicians whose reelection they can assure! Hence the desperation to have more jobs, more population, etc. and a larger tax base (not to mention the fact that a country of fewer than 700 million people couldn’t possibly pay the pension and entitlement obligations for which we’ve been signed up).
Let’s not remove responsibility from Davos Man.
Here’s me: I completed an undergrad in accounting and then a masters of accounting. I worked as a tax accountant while preparing for the CPA. I passed all 4 in one shot.
One day, while working away helping Davos Man hide his income, some “consultants” appeared. They fired ALL of us (non-partners) and replaced us with H1B’s and off-shored the rest. We couldn’t believe such an act was even legal. Is it legal?
So here I sit. 2 degrees, a professional designation and unemployed.
For whom does the economy exist? Yeah, government workers are sucking up hoards of capital. Can we blame them? The private sector is rubbish.
When I read that the economy isn’t adding any jobs I become very frustrated. Absolutely nobody is looking out for the working man in this country. Nobody.
“It is hard to find a convenient way to compare that to other U.S. states.”
I have thought for a while that it might be nice to specify an API for some standard set of state information, statistical information, demographics, regulatory, perhaps even law.
You could then visit mass.gov/2011/population as well as newmexico.gov/2011/population , … to make it easy to compare this sort of information.
You could also visit oregon.gov/tax/sales/97230 to get up to the minute information on sales tax rates.
JJT, leaving aside Davos Man, why should an undeserved chance of birth country decide who has an opportunity to be work and who not (as in me or you in this country vs. some unknown soul in another country)? How would we feel if chance had put us in some less fortunate country than ours, through no merit/demerit of our own?
Not sure if you mean something else by not having a convenient report for the data, or if you missed the little dinosaur icon but BLS does have back data: http://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ma.htm
If you click on the little dinosaur icon in column “Back Data” you get http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST25000006?data_tool=XGtable.
A much better alternative is to check with Google data explorer [I didn’t find it there before checking at BLS, but it is there after all]: http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=employed&hl=en&dl=en#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=employed&fdim_y=seasonality:U&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=state&idim=city:PS250050:PS390200&hl=en&dl=en
LT: I found old data in the BLS, but not in a convenient format showing all states together and job changes as a percentage of the total. The Google data explorer is much better, but it still shows only absolute numbers of jobs. It looks like Virginia is doing fantastic among the long-established states, having grown from 3M to nearly 4M jobs over the past 20 years. Arizona also has done very well, taking the long view. Nevada, despite its recent troubles, has roughly doubled jobs from 1990-2011. New England certainly seems to be the land of stagnation, with minor exceptions such as the Somali immigration to Lewiston, Maine (see http://www.newsweek.com/2009/01/16/the-refugees-who-saved-lewiston.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_and_Bantu_migration_to_Maine).
I have a prejudice in favor of New England, thinking that all of our colleges must somehow be adding value that other regions don’t have. But apparently whatever value the colleges add does not create employment or a desire for people to settle here permanently. Perhaps Academically Adrift explains why I’m wrong.
If GOOG is not enough for you then I guess you need FRED:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=up
with a little practiced manipulation it’s pretty comprehensive
If the link works you should see VA, OH, MA, and NY civilian labor force scaled to 100 in 1976 (earliest avialable), ie a cumulative percentage from start. Massachussetts has done better than NY or OH but these three are within a 5% range: MA = 129, NY = 125.2, OH=123.9
As for comparing causes: VA has lower personal taxes comparatively 9.8% than OH 10.4, and NY 11.7, but higher than MA 9.5%:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/tax-burdens-by-state/
Here are latest corporate taxes http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/corp_inc.pdf
there’s also some historical data on taxadmin.org. MA has higher taxes than NY but has grown more jobs (this didn’t take much research I didn’t even peek at historical rates) So what explains the amazing VA performance – there’s even a hint in the dramatic 1996 drop: it’s the Guvmnt [1996 was a big Clinton cut in defense budget], some of those geniuses from MA math, comp sci and not a few from lib. arts programs are ensconced inside the NSA and other Virginia businesses (http://www.gotgeoint.com/archives/migration-to-ngas-new-campus-east-has-begun-photos-of-new-campus-east/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GotGeoint+%28got+geoint%3F%29).
(and yes they count as civilian)
I think New England’s white collar job have suffered from outsourcing which has not been as sudden as the loss of the manufacturing jobs few decades earlier but over the long term has been quite significant. Another big problem is the cost of living. I have friends moving to both Arizona, Georgia, Texas, etc mostly for financial reasons. All of them products of New England colleges but getting sick of the prices here. At least a couple also managed to keep their New England salaries while they moved. A single mom making 60K can’t afford much in Boston, but feels like a queen in Atlanta. And Georgia Tech at $8,716 cost way less than MIT ($39,212) while being ranked way higher than UMass ($12,084).
None of top public i.e. cheaper universities are in the NE:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public
Paomi: I fully agree with your moral argument. But here’s the deal with the H1B visa: its effectively a 21st century version of slavery as the visa holder’s economic freedom is severely restricted. The H1B by itself makes it tough but not impossible to change jobs. However, many people on a H1B aspire to become immigrants and usually the only way for them is to apply for an employment based green card (which essentially gives economic freedom and starts a path to citizenship). The rules for applying and getting a green card as they stand today keep a person stuck to the sponsoring company for the period it takes to process the application. These rules are especially hard on Indian and Chinese people as it currently takes about 7-10 years for them to get a green card. (Yes its true, the rules discriminate based on where you are born.) Anytime during this period if a visa holder loses his/her job, s/he becomes ineligible. Employers exploit this lack of economic freedom to extract more work at lower pay from a person on a H1B. This is what makes the H1B so attractive to employers and so disastrous for the rest of us.
I would fully support a H1B visa structured something like this: Provide complete economic freedom to the visa holder for the period issued. On completing the said period without committing any felonies or similar crimes, give an option for citizenship. Unfortunately the U.S. doesn’t have a years in residence based or point based system as other supposedly less free countries do. These would also be better substitutes for the H1B.
Philip: I’ve voted Libertarian twice in a row…maybe I meant “angry Fox news watcher.” Just thinking of anyone who thinks that people should be thrilled to work minimum wage jobs without health insurance because “it’s a job!”
Paomi: there are many refutations to your “moral argument”
1. Every other country in the world gives preferences to its citizens. How dare Libya only pay a $25,000 bonus married couples only in Libya! The government of Finland paid Linus Torvalds a salary for being a college student: should I remind them that they forgot mine? Can Americans get almost free education at the Indian Institute of Technology, or is that unconscionably reserved for, um, Indians? How easy is it for an American straight out of school to get a professional job in India or China? Will JJT find employers in the H1-B sending countries as eager to hire him as American companies are to kick Americans to the curb? Would he receive preferential Qualified Minority status in Indian government contracting (as South Asian immigrants do in the US)?
2. The US Constitution was written “…for ourselves and our posterity.” It may be “immoral” by your standards, but caring for our own is a historic American virtue.
3. Politicians, like the head of a household or a corporate manager, have a moral obligation to use the authority vested in them for the benefit of those who, by “an accident of birth,” are their constituents: the people who die in the wars pay the taxes. My “representatives” actively enact legislation to deliberately reduce my wages and harm my ability to support myself: that’s immoral.
4. Why should Americans by “accident of birth” have to pay the world’s highest medical and educational costs and then compete with those educated almost for free?
Why not assign each H1-B a student loan equal to the average debt of a graduating American in their field? Remember, these are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Of course, an alien can always just go back home laughing, unlike an American (the US government even garnishes the Social Security checks of people dying of AIDS, like Clay Stanley).