Washington Post

Why are red states hiring so much faster than blue states?

Andrew Van Dam
Fri, May 26, 2023 at 2:58 PM EDT

We ranked the 50 states by their hiring rates and were swiftly struck by a trend so clear that - if it holds up - should be front-page news: Republican-leaning states are hiring faster than blue states.

Of the 17 fastest-hiring states, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14 voted for Trump in 2020. The top two Biden-voting states, Georgia and Nevada, are probably best classified as purple (Biden-blue Delaware is the other). The 10 slowest-hiring states all went for Biden.

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Have we all missed a hidden red-state resurgence? For every politician who loves to talk about job creation, there are several economists who love to remind us that politics don't have much influence on the economy. A political split this stark is as rare as a 17-pound potato, and at least as newsworthy.

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That said, there are some plausible explanations in this case. Many of the fastest-hiring states - Alaska, Wyoming, Montana and Kentucky - have unusually low tax rates and lean on extractive industries such as mining or petroleum. We've seen firsthand the economic boom that gas and pipelines can bring to struggling regions.

Certain outspoken workers in those places often tell reporters that regulation-happy Democrats in Washington are stifling business. And they may be right. Until the booms go bust and the environmental bill comes due, hiring and pay often soar as the gas industry expands.

But when we delved deeper, confusion seized our synapses. First, we found this isn't just a matter of pandemic policies or a Trump-era triumph. This set of states has been hiring faster for the entire decade for which we have data.

More perplexingly, we found that faster hiring hasn't translated to faster job growth. When we ran the payroll numbers, the typical red state wasn't adding jobs any faster than the typical blue one.

And faster hiring doesn't indicate a more dynamic economy. A new analysis from the Economic Innovation Group found a healthy red-blue mix among the most- and least-dynamic state economies. EIG, a bipartisan Washington, D.C., outfit that churns out data-driven research and policy proposals, measured dynamism based on patenting, business start-ups, housing permits and other factors, few of which had any relationship to the pace of hiring.

Bewildered, we called Nick Bunker, economic research director at the job site Indeed. Bunker is the world's second-most-prominent fan of job-opening and hiring data, behind only Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, and he had a ready explanation for the seeming disconnect.

"It's churn," he said. Those red states weren't creating jobs faster. They were just hiring more often because folks were bouncing around more. Red states don't have more layoffs or job openings than blue ones, they just have more quits and hires.

As Bunker points out, quits and hires track each other closely. They both reflect how fast businesses churn through workers. When you combine quits and layoffs, then chart them against hires, you can't tell the two lines apart.

It's also why the ever-genial Bunker becomes uncharacteristically agitated when he discusses the "Great Resignation." Yes, everybody was quitting, but they weren't giving up. They were getting rehired elsewhere

LONG story continues, , ,

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Dora Hates You

...I did.

Agree as well.

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The REAL truth is....both of the forum idiots are OWNED.
-BOTH of them have no clue who their owner is.
-They are both card carrying narcissists.
^These are PROVED facts.

Here's the summary:

"Red states don't have more layoffs or job openings than blue ones, they just have more quits and hires."

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".

That is usually indicative of more job availability. People usually do not quit a job when they know it will be difficult to find another one.

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I :heart; Q

Shitty jobs tend to be the most available and the first ones people quit.

Taco Bell is always hiring but that doesn't signify a booming prosperous local economy.

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Capitalism is based on the ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed, finite system.

In biology, such behavior of cells is called "cancer".