Top-Ranking States For ‘Economic Outlook’ Protect Right to Work
According to the 17th edition of Rich States, Poor States, a survey of state economic policies, past performance, and future prospects published this April, every single one of the 15 top-ranking states for “economic outlook” has a Right to Work law.
This survey is prepared by economists Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Jonathan Williams, and published by the Crystal City, Va.-based American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Right to Work States Lead in Past Performance, As Well As Future Prospects
The Laffer-Moore-Williams analysis forecasts states’ economic performance based on their current standing with regard to 15 state policy variables related to taxes, spending, business regulation, and labor policy.
Though the authors clearly see Right to Work protections for employees as vitally important for future job and income growth, Right to Work is granted no more weight than the other 14 variables considered in the analysis.
Therefore, the overrepresentation of Right to Work states at the top of the “economic outlook” rankings shows that Right to Work has a strong relationship with many other factors that allow a state to thrive.
In a separate analysis within the same report that focused only on 2012-2022 economic results, Rich States, Poor States found that eight of the top 10 states for “economic performance” have Right to Work laws.
No Nation Is Poor Because It Has ‘Excessive’ Economic Freedom
There is ample reason to believe that Right to Work is not “merely” correlated with economic success, but that it actively causes states’ economies to grow.
As Mr. Moore, speaking for himself only, recently observed, forced unionism is one of several “economically loony” ideas that weigh an economy down.
“[W]e’ve never met a nation that got poor because it had TOO MUCH economic freedom,” Mr. Moore added.
Sharing Mr. Moore’s perspective is Duke University economist Matthew Lilley.
In “Workers, Wages, and Economic Mobility: The Long-Run Effects of Right-to-Work Laws,” a 2023 paper for the nonpartisan Manhattan Institute, Dr. Lilley investigated the impact of state bans on forced union dues and fees as a job condition on “overall economic activity.”
Drawing on research he had previously done with fellow economist Benjamin Austin when they were both Harvard graduate students, Dr. Lilley reported that, over substantial periods of time, Right to Work boosts total employment.
Right to Work’s impact is especially strong in the manufacturing sector, which has a long history of heavy unionization. Dr. Lilley also reported that Right to Work laws evidently help lower the overall poverty and childhood poverty rates in jurisdictions where they are in effect.
Forced Dues Lead to Destructive Economic Policy
Right to Work laws improve the “economic status of future generations.”
Children from all types of families who otherwise come from demographically similar places are substantially more likely to end up in the “top economic quintile” if they live in a Right to Work environment.
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Matthew Leen observed that one important reason for Right to Work states’ economic dominance is surely that business-bashing union officials do not have such an extraordinarily outsized influence over public policies in those states.
“Wherever Big Labor is endowed with forced-dues privileges,” observed Mr. Leen, “it funnels a large share of the loot extracted from workers into efforts to elect and reelect politicians who support higher taxes, more government spending, and straitjacket regulation of business.
As Rich States, Poor States shows, all of these union boss-favored public policies are negatively correlated with job and income growth and economic health.
That’s one key reason why compulsory unionism is a barrier to prosperity. It also drives away independent-minded, enterprising workers and growth-minded businesses, while handing ill-gotten wealth to union bosses who use it to elect politicians who’ll promote the interests of the union hierarchy, not of workers or taxpayers, by rubber-stamping the ‘economically loony’ policies Mr. Moore and his colleagues identified.
“It’s no surprise that Right to Work status is one of the surest signals of the health of a state’s economy, and of the soundness of the policies it has put in place to ensure the future success of that economy.”
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