Georgia is good for business owners, bad for workers

http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/2014/jul/07/georgia-still-chasing-flawed-economic-model/

July 7, 2014
By Jay Bookman

Last month, CNBC ranked Georgia as the best state in the country in which to do business, a fact that Gov. Nathan Deal naturally seized upon in his re-election bid.

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According to CNBC, we won that top ranking in part because we have the nation’s best workforce in the country.

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Out of the 47 states for which data are available, Georgia ranks 45th in high-school graduation rates. Only Nevada and New Mexico do worse. So given the importance of education in the modern workforce, it would seem impossible for such a state to boast the best workforce in the country.

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According to CNBC, Georgia also boasts the best transportation infrastructure in the country. You live here, you work here. [If you live here, you are ROTFL at this]

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According to Scott Cohn of CNBC, the network has been ranking states for competitiveness since 2007, and in all that time, Georgia has never finished out of the top 10. It appears that we’ve been doing everything right, year after year.

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Have those high ratings produced tangible results: good-paying jobs, a strong economy, an improving quality of life? I can tell you what the numbers say. The numbers say that by any measure — per capita income, median household income, productivity per capita — we have been tumbling down the state rankings for a decade or more.

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CNBC refuses to divulge how its rankings are reached, in the past referring to the system as its “black box.” However, it admits depending heavily on advice from groups that value low wages, low business taxes and lucrative taxpayer subsidies for business relocation. And that may explain a mystery or two.

Take the workforce ranking. The data show that every year, average Georgians earn less and less, falling further and further behind their fellow Americans. To the people who live here, that’s a bad thing. To businesses chasing the lowest-wage workforce possible, it’s a good thing. We experience it as decline, they view it as progress. If we’re doing exactly what their model demands, yet things are getting worse, I’d suggest their model is flawed.

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