Right to Work = Freedom to Prosper

What’s better for Vermont, having more people work for non-unionized companies or having fewer people work for companies that are unionized? The folks behind the forced-union policies in states like ours would ague this isn’t a fair question. In their typically hopeless and ill-informed fashion, they will insist that this is a false dichotomy – more unions doesn't mean fewer jobs. Well, they're wrong. This paper by the Mackinac Center clearly shows that states with forced-union laws do create fewer jobs. In addition, right-to-works states out-perform forced-union states in a number of other metrics including:

1. Faster economic growth,

2. Lower unemployment rates,

3. Greater employment growth,

4. Higher real GDP growth,

5. Greater growth in personal income,

6. Higher population growth, and

7. Greater home price appreciation.

One of the principles driving much of the work done here at the Tiger is an awareness and acceptance of the realities of tax competition. (These realities have become so obvious that at the international level the non-competitive EU states have organized themselves into a cartel in an effort to coerce their non-member neighbors into raising their tax rates.)  At the Tiger, we already know about the relationship between taxes and economic growth and we already know Vermont's place in the US state tax competitiveness rankings. However, it is also worth noting that states compete on several levels. While tax rates may be the most obvious to individuals, businesses often find a state's regulatory environment equally important.

The Mackinac report’s findings that labor regulations are correlated with several economic measurements is a good example of why businesses are -- and more people should be -- concerned about their state's regulatory competitiveness. It is no coincidence that the map showing right-to-work states looks a lot like the United Van Lines map showing interstate migration patterns. Furthermore, the map looks remarkably similar to an old economic freedom index map produced by the Pacific Research Institute. Taxes do matter. Regulations do matter. People do respond to incentives.