I have been saying for some time that one of the best things about Illinois is the object lesson it provides for other states. This Wall Street Journal editorial provides another example of that:
Unemployment was lowest in Nebraska (2.5%), Utah (2.7%), South Dakota (2.9%), New Hampshire (2.9%), Idaho (3%), Vermont (3.1%), Alabama (3.3%), Montana (3.7%) and Oklahoma (3.7%). All are governed by Republicans, except Vermont, which has a GOP Governor and Democratic Legislature.
By contrast, the states with the highest unemployment are all run by Democrats: Connecticut (7.9%), New Mexico (7.9%), Nevada (7.8%), California (7.7%), Hawaii (7.7%), New York (7.7%), New Jersey (7.3%) and Illinois (7.2%). Mere coincidence?
Hawaii and Nevada rely on tourism, which will take time to fully bounce back. But what’s Illinois’s excuse? Other Midwest states with a mix of agriculture and manufacturing have unemployment rates near what they were at the end of President Obama’s second term. That includes Wisconsin (3.9%), Indiana (4.1%), Missouri (4.3%) and Kentucky (4.4%).
Or what about California, the nation’s richest state? While California makes up 12% of the U.S. population, it accounted for only about 9% of employment growth last month. Florida and Arizona lifted most of their business restrictions long ago, yet they still added jobs at two to three times the rate of California.
and
California’s labor force has declined 2.8%, or about 540,000 workers, since February 2020. Illinois (2.7%), New Jersey (3.5%) and Connecticut (7.6%) have also lost a significant number of workers. New York’s labor force has fallen by somewhat less (0.9%), though still more than Florida’s (0.7%), Georgia’s (0.7%) and Texas’s (0.8%).
So what’s going on? For one, high-tax Democratic states have continued to lose population to lower-tax states during the pandemic. This likely has contributed to their shrinking workforces and reduced local business demand. The flight of high-earners and office workers has slammed New York City’s restaurant industry.
Let’s look at some various factors:
| State | Party of governor | COVID-19 Deaths/Million | COVID-19 Cases/Million | Gini coefficient | % Non-Hispanic white population | % Unemployment rate | |
| Illinois | 2,041 | 110,991 | 0.4810 | 62.9% | 7.2% | ||
| Indiana | 2,074 | 113,438 | 0.4527 | 80.9% | 4.1% | ||
| Wisconsin | 1,414 | 117,058 | 0.4498 | 82.8% | 3.9% | ||
| Iowa | 1,956 | 129,264 | 0.4451 | 88.0% | 4.0% | ||
| Missouri | 1,665 | 106,842 | 0.4646 | 80.5% | 4.3% | ||
I picked those states because I think that it’s more useful to compare similar things when trying to identify differences. Why compare Hawaii with North Dakota? There are too many confounding factors. I picked those factors because I thought they might be interesting when comparing and contrasting outcomes.
I’m not as convinced as the editors of the WSJ that it’s the political party that makes the difference or, said another way, I think the causality may run in a different direction than the editors think. The state with the highest unemployment rate is, of course, Illinois which does, indeed, have a Democratic governor. The state with the lowest unemployment rate is Wisconsin which also has a Democratic governor. To my eye it looks as though states with large minority populations tend to elect Democrats and also have high unemployment rates.
Amusing aside — which other state is most like Illinois, not to a part of it, but to the whole state?
I would say Michigan. Except Michigan is not nearly as corrupt as Illinois.
The party of the Governor reflects the kind of people in the state. People get the government they deserve. Democrat states merely have an excess of people looking for, or maybe needing, a free ride. Unemployment is high, because a lot of people don’t want to, or can’t, work. A people stuck in dependency elect officials who will provide for them.
Michigan is the perfect analogy. Detroit and other points east are Chicago. Western MI is downstate IL, meaning south of I-80.