The structural problem is that government has too many mouths to feed. It’s possible to quantify that problem. The result is a metric that I call the Deadweight Ratio. It tells you how many beneficiaries of government spending there are for every private sector job.
Every state has one set of people contributing to the coffers—namely, private sector workers—and another drawing from it—namely, government workers and welfare recipients. In healthy states, the contributors outnumber the users. In unhealthy states the reverse is true.
California is in trouble. For every 100 people employed in the private sector it has 113 people drawing benefits. A person working at Disney or Intel or a fast food franchise is carrying his own weight plus that of one other person—a teacher, say, or a Medicaid recipient or a retired prison guard.
Many factors contribute to California’s budget crisis. The state has a big university system, an influx of needy immigrants and an expansive notion of how involved the government should be in people’s lives.
Up to a point, the private sector is willing to carry government employees and welfare moms on its shoulders. Beyond that point, it is not, however worthy the recipients of government largesse are. Employers leave. The jobs go to other states or overseas. That leaves what’s left of the private sector in even worse shape.
Some figures from US states show a wide variance :
State & local | | |||
Contributors | government | Medicaid | Deadweight | |
workers | recipients | recipients | Ratio | |
thousands | thousands | thousands | ||
Mississippi | 877 | 222 | 750 | 120.7 |
New Mexico | 635 | 167 | 501 | 117.9 |
California | 11918 | 2137 | 10511 | 113 |
Arkansas | 973 | 199 | 692 | 98.9 |
Louisiana | 1566 | 333 | 1097 | 98.6 |
Arizona | 2045 | 363 | 1456 | 96.1 |
Maine | 506 | 91 | 350 | 94.4 |
New York | 7272 | 1387 | 4955 | 93.5 |
West Virginia | 621 | 130 | 392 | 93 |
Alaska | 244 | 69 | 121 | 91.2 |
Oklahoma | 1253 | 291 | 719 | 90 |
Alabama | 1541 | 329 | 919 | 89.7 |
Vermont | 256 | 50 | 158 | 88.1 |
Tennessee | 2257 | 388 | 1447 | 87.5 |
South Carolina | 1509 | 308 | 892 | 86.4 |
Kentucky | 1499 | 293 | 834 | 82.3 |
Michigan | 3311 | 589 | 1856 | 79.6 |
Washington | 2315 | 475 | 1163 | 78.4 |
Wyoming | 216 | 67 | 78 | 77.1 |
North Carolina | 3244 | 642 | 1646 | 77.1 |
Georgia | 3271 | 570 | 1685 | 75.6 |
Delaware | 357 | 60 | 185 | 73.9 |
Texas | 8829 | 1684 | 4170 | 72.7 |
Idaho | 497 | 108 | 213 | 71.7 |
Hawaii | 505 | 93 | 217 | 70.7 |
Ohio | 4365 | 713 | 2067 | 69.1 |
Massachusetts | 2815 | 398 | 1403 | 68.6 |
Illinois | 4890 | 774 | 2323 | 68.5 |
Missouri | 2258 | 398 | 1002 | 68.2 |
Florida | 6256 | 989 | 2842 | 66.6 |
Rhode Island | 410 | 52 | 195 | 65.1 |
Oregon | 1344 | 273 | 513 | 64.9 |
Indiana | 2405 | 401 | 1023 | 64.4 |
Wisconsin | 2348 | 399 | 990 | 64.2 |
South Dakota | 335 | 68 | 123 | 64 |
Iowa | 1241 | 242 | 470 | 63.1 |
Montana | 351 | 77 | 111 | 61.2 |
Kansas | 1092 | 238 | 353 | 61 |
Maryland | 2162 | 367 | 753 | 59.9 |
Pennsylvania | 5019 | 662 | 2090 | 59.4 |
Connecticut | 1406 | 232 | 530 | 59.1 |
Minnesota | 2255 | 388 | 786 | 57.2 |
Nebraska | 795 | 154 | 241 | 55.7 |
Colorado | 1900 | 344 | 554 | 53.3 |
North Dakota | 313 | 73 | 69 | 53.1 |
Utah | 1017 | 182 | 291 | 52.9 |
Virginia | 3108 | 536 | 863 | 52.3 |
New Jersey | 3296 | 582 | 954 | 51.9 |
New Hampshire | 537 | 93 | 144 | 49.1 |
Nevada | 982 | 138 | 247 | 43.5 |
Graphing these figures over the last few decades would be a real eye-opener!
No comments:
Post a Comment