It's only going to get worse. Tons of people are going back to school, on top of the usual high numbers of college enrollment. In 4 or 5 years it's going to be twice as bad. I'm going to move to China and open a sweat shop making products for Martha Stewart. I think that would be much more profitable.
No, it really isn't based on high unemployment. That's a very serious misreading of the data. Look at the other high-ranking states. Colorado is #4, Texas is #6. Both have unemployment rates well below the national average. Utah (#1) and Virginia (#2) have rates far below the national average. In fact, Oregon is the only state in the top 25 with unemployment significantly above the national average. Oregon made the list in spite of the unemployment rate, not because of it. barfo
I'd invite you to look at the breakdowns, not the overall rankings. Colorado, Texas, Utah and Virginia were ranked highly based on other factors.
I guess you might want to look at them too, then. Colorado ranks #1 in "labor supply", which I guess is what you guys think means "unemployment". And yet, Colorado has low unemployment. barfo
Nice try, but since I live in Colorado, allow me to drop some knowledge on you. Their definition of "Labor Supply Rank" isn't based on unemployment, but rather the labor pool's educational attainment, net migration and population growth. There are loads of highly educated people here who come for the quality of life (#9 BTW). The Front Range in particular is growing by leaps and bounds, creating a megalopolis from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. Colorado is also #15 in regulation, #6 in economic climate and #6 in economic growth. The state is quite pro business.
Of course I knew you lived in Colorado, that's why I picked it as the example. You are absolutely correct that their definition of labor supply doesn't depend upon unemployment. Good that we got that out of the way. If you remember, that was the point I was making. barfo
Upon further reading, you're correct. It appears unemployment is factored into "Economic Climate". On that measure, we're #14, which shows me that they didn't put a high priority on the unemployment rate. I would agree that Oregon has an overeducated labor base compared to other states (there's an influx of highly educated people into our state). CO has the same issue. The more I look at this study, the more the methodology of it seems hinky to me. I'm not sure I buy it. If I were starting a business and didn't care where I lived, I wouldn't start it in Oregon or Washington over Texas.
But by saying (hypothetically) that you don't care where you live, you are throwing out the quality of life category, where Texas ranks 38th. [I agree with you that Oregon is unaccountably low on that metric]. If you throw that out, Texas would have ranked higher than #7. barfo
I'm saying that I don't have to live where I start a business. The folks at Intel live in Santa Clara, the folks at Vestas live in Roskilde. The workers have to live where I start a business.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/16/texas-tops-california-job-growth-study-shows/ Texas Tops California in Job Growth, Study Shows According to new research by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a nonprofit free-market research institute, the second most populous state in the union created 129,000 new jobs in the past year, a 1.3 percent rate, far overshadowing the declining California, which lost 112,000 jobs during the same period.
You are correct. I misread it. I find it difficult to believe that they ranked Oregon as high as they did in the 4th and 5th columns though. I guess Forbes is a liberal rag after all...
It would be very interesting to see the raw data that went into the 4th and 5th columns. It's a bit annoying that these things never reveal exactly what data they used and how they weighted the various factors. barfo
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249868/texas-model-rich-lowry A little fleshing out on what fiscal responsibility can do for you.
You know, China is way more successful than Texas at everything Texas tries to do. Why emulate Texas when we could be emulating China? barfo
