Recession deepening in American West?
Critics of New York’s tax-and-regulation system often complain that we’re driving people and businesses out of state.
But a new survey of the most economically stressed counties, conducted by the Associated Press, found that an astonishing 12 out of 20 hardest-hit areas are in California.
In Imperial County, unemployment tops 30%. Ouch.
Three more extremely depressed counties were in the state of Nevada, along with one more in New Mexico.
That means 16 out of 20 of the worst-hit areas are in the far West — not the Northeastern or Great Lakes rust belts.
The only other US state to have three counties in the “bottom 20” list was Michigan.
A lot of the states with counties boasting the lowest unemployment were in the Midwest, with Kansas and Oklahoma looking particularly strong.
Maybe if we’re patient, we’ll get there.
Imperial County for those of you who haven’t been there, is a desert. In the depression the U.S. built water storage and distribution facilities to transport Sierra mountain snow melt to Imperial County. The water, and large quantities of fertilizer, created enourmous farms capable of feeding the western half of the country.
Since then, the poulations of Los Angeles and San Diego have grown quite a bit. The new residents have voted to divert the water to their cities, and Imperial County is slowly returning to the desert land it once was. The unemployed are farmers and farm workers who used to harvest the crops in the region. The workers are Spanish speaking and they have little or no educaton, and no other job skills. If they could afford to move from the area, they would.
When California had fewer people, there was enough water for the Salmon in the streams, the city slickers, and the farms. Now the demand of all three constiuencies has grown, but the amount of snow fall has not. Hard choices have to be made, and the decision process has been ugly.
Try Texas Brian. Friends tell me they manage to get by with no state income tax and an 8.75 sales tax. Business is booming and the only dark spot appears to be the fact the US Gov’t refuses to enforce it’s boundaries. word has it Texans are going to take care of it the Gov’t won’t.
I think you need to look at long term growth rates over decades not necessarily how states fare in one individual recession.
New York may have high taxes and regulations but we also have the largest City in the United States, by orders of magnitude. This world capital city competes with other world cities, not only US cities and among that bunch it may stack up nicely.
Bush’s fault.
I actually think NY state is well-positioned if it can reorder its fiscal and political house in the capital. It has fairly cheap land (never was a bubble in most areas), abundant water, incredible natural beauty, a climate that seems to be mellowing with global warming, and a decent education system.
The biggest problem, besides the sclerosis in Albany, is often a parochial, defeatist, non-entrepreneurial, can’t-win-don’t-try attitude on the part of a loud minority of locals who fight innovation. They never change their state reps. Rather just point fingers at the cities, the environmentalists, the unions, the newcomers, whoever…, than actually try to change things.
I don’t think the biggest problem is a bad attitude on the part of “locals” ; whatever that even means.
Maybe there is no problem? In some ways we get what we all want. We have the highest taxes in the nation; but then again many of us reap rewards from these same high taxes. We do have high rates of unionization compared to other states and the trade off is indeed fewer jobs but the jobs we do have pay more. We have higher rates of poverty and a wide disparity between rich and poor in NYS; but those who do have good jobs live well. Maybe this is the equilibrium?
“…a climate that seems to be mellowing with global warming…”
Uh, maybe you were in Florida this past winter and the winter before that and the winter before that and…..
Nope, Bret. Can’t afford fancy-shmancy vacations to Florida.
I’m just talking about here, where we’re having a very early and pleasant spring, where the sap runs earlier every year, and where the big lake near me rarely freezes over any more.
Yes, where we’re getting snow in May and freezes too. Weather cycles. Always has, always will.