In an attempt to make Gov Deval Patrick look bad, Red Mass Group Owner Rob Eno uses “job growth” as his focus. In his chart, it shows in 2011, Massachusetts ranked 40th in job creation. He is trying to say, Deval Patrick’s policies failed, right? It is the failed liberal policies of high taxation and regulations that is hurting job creation in Massachusetts. That is the meme promoted by the right wing.
So what state do Massachusetts Republicans, and Rob Eno consistently point to for policies they deem successful for job creation? Well, our neighbor to the north right? New Hampshire. Let’s see how New Hampshire, the shining light in New England, stack up to Massachusetts in job creation.
Here is Rob Eno’s chart
What do I see? I see the state of New Hampshire is NOT looking great. In fact New Hampshire is ranked 39th in job creation, where are the jobs? I thought this was the one New England state that Massachusetts should exemplify.
Also, on a side note, look at the terrible numbers for Wisconsin, they rank 51 out of 51 including DC.
My point is not to defend the Massachusetts numbers, but pointing out that the policies of low taxes and less regulations, Massachusetts Republicans and Rob Eno push obviously aren’t working in New Hampshire either.
Perhaps there is something deeper in these numbers.
…and that we were 47th under Romney.
from here shows that NH has fared pretty well with their unemployment rate v. MA and the rest of the country over the last 4 years.
… NH residential employment or Jobs in NH? The former would include border commuters.
and not sure that the BLS delineates that by where employed. Anyone familiar with the statistics know the answer or do they just view residents working out of state as “statistical noise”? Not sure if the stats are showing number of residents of NH who are employed (w/o regard to location, be it MA, VT, or ME border states), but my guess that it is indeed the case. Not sure if focusing on jobs in NH how you would get to a denominator. But larger point is that NH unemployment rate has been significantly lower than MA over last 4 years. One could state that MA has larger urban areas and financial sector jobs that were impacted, but one could also bring up that MA has more “recession proof/resistant” industries such as health care and education. In ’91 recession, NH was hit harder than MA because of tech implosion, but obviously weathered it better this time around.
… unemployment rate would count those with jobs across the border. In this way the health of NH’s economy probably owes some portion of credit to MA.
From the Concord Monitor:
More people on the border live in NH but work in Mass. The evidence I have is Rush hour…Southbound from NH is packed in the Am and Northbound is packed in the pm
Arch-conservative right-wingers who bitch and whine about the taxes in Massachusetts, live in southern New Hampshire, and free-load on the tax-payers they stiff.
They pay no income or sales taxes (the stores just mark up their prices by 5%, but they don’t notice that), and come to Mass General when they get sick, fly in and out of Logan when they need to go somewhere, and tear up the highways with their SUVs and pickup trucks.
The Massachusetts economy is the only reason New Hampshire is in any better shape than Mississippi, but that doesn’t fit their delusions and so they deny it.
with that scenario: pay MA non-resident income taxes and much higher property taxes in NH.
… and that there is such a draw despite the structural problem you point out is testament to the value of MA jobs.
I’m not totally sure that each of those commuters actually pays the Massachusetts taxes they are obligated to pay. It’s that Republican thing (IOKIYAR), kind of like Mr. Webster.
is hard to evade if a W-2 is issued.
After all, you can always do what Mr. Webster apparently did — file a return and “forget” to pay it.
I’m not sure that the MA government is any better at locating New Hampshire residents who work in MA (and choose to ignore MA tax filings) than they are the many other things that seem to go undone. I’ve never tried such antics myself, but I suspect that it doesn’t take more than two or three moves from one New Hampshire address to another to effectively hide from whomever tracks such things in the MA DOR.
I do notice that public officials (especially GOP public officials) seem to have a much higher rate of tax liens than the general public. I’d love to know if that perception is supported by reality.