EXPOSED by CMD: ALEC’s State Ratings Favor Corporate Policy Wish-List Over Quality of Life
NEW: ALEC’s annual economic survey ranks states “rich” based on how closely states track the corporate pay-to-play group’s preferred tax and labor policies as opposed to actual quality of life factors such as wages, poverty rates, and access to healthcare.https://t.co/WeZE7t4fkP
— Exposed by CMD (@EXPOSEDbyCMD) May 10, 2023
In its annual report ranking the business climate of states, the American Legislative Exchange Council gave the highest marks to states where residents fare the worst, EXPOSED by CMD wrote. Per the article:
Utah ranks among the worst states in the country when it comes to gender pay equity. Oklahoma is among the worst in terms of poverty and food insecurity, and more than one in ten North Carolinians lacks health insurance. Yet, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) cites these as among the top five states in the country with the best economic outlook, according to its recently released Rich States, Poor States report for 2023.
ALEC’s annual economic survey ranks states “rich” based on how closely states track the corporate pay-to-play group’s preferred tax and labor policies as opposed to actual quality of life factors such as wages, poverty rates, and access to healthcare.
The report’s ratings are based on an “ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index” that favors states with low and regressive taxes (income, corporate, estate, real estate, sales), tax and spending limits, a low minimum wage, a minimal number of public employees, low workers’ compensation costs, anti-union “right-to-work” policies, and anti-plaintiff legal “reforms” favored by big business…
“It has been almost 40 years since such misleading ‘business climate’ studies were first discredited,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First. “But given ALEC’s corporate agenda, it’s no news that it would ‘rate’ states favorably for regressive taxation and wage suppression. This 1970s dogma won’t hunt in today’s economy.”
In 2012, Good Jobs First and Fisher published Selling Snake Oil to the States, a detailed report that debunked ALEC’s methodology and found that states ranked the highest by ALEC actually had the worst outcomes for job creation and wages over the preceding five years.
Read the full story at EXPOSED by CMD.
Read the Good Jobs First report, Selling Snake Oil to the States.