Col Hogan wrote:Kansas is proof that tax cuts create jobs...
This week, Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) ran an editorial declaring that the tax cut Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and the state legislature passed in 2012 “is working.” Newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Kansas and Utah are tied for first when it comes to state job growth estimates.
Here are the highlights from the report:
For the first two months of the year, Kansas increased its non-farm jobs by 9,500 and the private sector added 9,000 jobs for March.
In a state-to-state comparison, Kansas placed 2nd in private-sector jobs growth in February.
Private-sector jobs from February 2014 to February 2015 grew by 21,200 — one of the most significant increases in the country.
Kansas surpassed all neighboring states except Colorado in private job gains over the year.
forbes1
In private-sector hourly wages, Kansas beat all neighboring states except Nebraska.
Private-sector hourly wage estimates for January were revised upward, showing that Kansas gained 3.4% rather than 3.2% in hourly pay.
In month of February, Kansas hit a new record in hourly wage gains of 61 cents an hour.
Kansans are making an average of $25.52 more each week, while only having to work an average of 12 minutes longer.”
Compared to February last year, Kansas City, Kansas’s private sector average hourly wages were higher than in Kansas City, Missouri by 55 cents.
Unrelated to February data, Kansas has one of the highest employment-to-population ratios in the U.S., at 65.2%.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rexsinquefi ... ous-state/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So I read both the Forbes piece and the Investors Business Daily op-ed it linked to. Forbes at least provides a link to Bureau of Labor Statistics reports whereas the IBD piece simply cites numbers put out by the Kansas City Policy Institute:
The Kansas Policy Institute (KPI) is a free-market American think tank based in Wichita, Kansas.[4] A member of the State Policy Network, it primarily focuses on state and local policy issues in Kansas, including education, budget and spending, health care, and property taxes.
Overview
The group's stated mission is to "advocate for free market solutions to public policy issues and the protection of personal freedom for all Kansans."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Policy_Institute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The reason I did this is the BLS report didn't back up some of the numbers from the Forbes or IBD articles and one of the graphs in the Forbes piece is nowhere to be found in the BLS report. Curious, because the graph comes after a claim that Kansas ranked #2 in job growth but the graph is a regional statistic. In other words Kansas was 2nd out of 5 neighboring states.
I then found this recent piece that disputes the IBD articles claims related to the Missouri side of Kansas City:
Take a look at federal Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, released on a monthly, non-seasonally adjusted basis for the area. (Note: The total workforce on the Missouri side is a bit larger than on the Kansas side.)
▪ In the most recent year, from January 2014 to January 2015, employment on the Missouri side of the state line rose 3.7 percent vs. 2.6 percent on the Kansas side.
The Missouri side gained 20,300 jobs in that year while Kansas added only 11,300.
This is especially notable because it occurred when — if Brownback’s theory were working — more companies, firms and individuals likely would be expected to take advantage of the tax cuts and roll into Kansas.
▪ In the two years the Brownback tax cuts had been in place from January 2013 to January 2015, employment on the Kansas side was up 4.5 percent, which Missouri nearly matched with job growth of 4.2 percent.
That’s only a small advantage for Kansas. And the Missouri side actually added more jobs than the Kansas side did during this time — 23,000 vs. 19,200.
▪ Overall, the Kansas side of the metropolitan area added fewer jobs after the tax cuts took effect than it did during the first two years of Brownback’s term before the cuts were in pla
ce.
Read more here:
http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/edito ... rylink=cpy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
