Posted on 11/23/2012 6:28:55 AM PST by VitacoreVision
The U-Haul Index, popularized by economist Mark Perry, shows how much extra people in California are willing to pay to get out of town and head for Texas.
Latest U-Haul Index Shows Californians Leaving for Texas
The New American
23 November 2012
One of the best indicators of a state’s economic health, according to John Merline, writing in Investor’s Business Daily, is the “U-Haul Index” (first publicized by economist Mark Perry) to see what people are paying to move into, or out of, the state. Renting a 20-foot truck one way from San Francisco to San Antonio, Texas, for example, costs $1,693. Going in the other direction, however, costs only $983 for the same truck.
As Perry explains:
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The American people and businesses are voting with their feet and their one-way truck rentals to escape California and its forced unionism, high taxes, and high unemployment rate for a better life in low-tax, business-friendly, right-to-work states like Texas.
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They have lots of reasons to leave. According to the Tax Foundation, “Tax Freedom Day” arrives earlier in Texas than it does in California, due to its zero individual and corporate income tax and a lower sales tax. Put together, Texas’ state and local tax burden is less than eight percent of income, well below the national average of nearly 10 percent, while California’s is almost 12 percent.
This enormous disparity puts California the 48th out of the 50 states in the foundation’s overall business tax climate index, while Texas ranks ninth.
It isn't all about taxes, however. Its regulatory environment and yawning fiscal deficits are chasing companies away to more favorable locales. Part is the state’s determined efforts to increase still further its tax burden on high income earners — now an astounding 13 percent — along with its implementation of policies favored by the Obama administration in Washington. As Joel Kotkin of NewGeography.com put it,
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California will serve as the prime testing ground for President Obama’s form of post-economic liberalism. Every dream program that the Administration embraces — cap and trade, massive taxes on the rich, high-speed rail — is either in place or on the drawing boards.
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Despite the state’s efforts to redistribute the wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't, “the ranks of the poor have swollen to the point that the state, with 12% of the nation’s population, accounts for one-third of its welfare cases,” notes Kotkin.
In their study “The Great California Exodus,” Manhattan Institute’s authors Tom Gray and Robert Scardamalia looked not only at how many are leaving, but where they’re going and why. Since 1990 California has lost nearly 3½ million residents, most of them moving to southwestern states such as Texas, Nevada, and Arizona.
They blame this out-migration on California’s “chronic economic adversity” as well as its population density: Los Angeles and Orange County have nearly 7,000 people per square mile, more than either New York City or Chicago. A third factor is what they call the state’s “constant fiscal instability” and the likelihood that its continued spending beyond its means will result in even higher taxes in the future.
Put altogether, then, the authors conclude
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that many cost drivers — taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs — are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.
The U-Haul Index has been confirmed in each of the last eight years by Chief Executive magazine in its annual survey of CEOs: "Texas easily clinched the No. 1 rank, the eighth successive time it has done so. California earns the dubious honor of being ranked dead last for the eighth consecutive year."
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The magazine notes the obvious:
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California’s enduring place of perpetual decline continues in this year’s ranking. Once the most attractive business environment, the Golden State appears to slip deeper into the ninth circle of business hell. The economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially under performs.
And its status as the most ruinously contentious place to operate remains undisturbed in eight years. Its unemployment rate, at 10.9 percent, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12 percent of America’s population, California has one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
Each year, the evidence that businesses are leaving California or avoid locating there because of the high cost of doing business due to excessive state taxes and stringent regulations, grows.
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The U-Haul index is right: More and more people think it’s worth it to pay extra to get out of California.
Please no! Stay away!
I imagine some of the exodus are libs, but I'd bet most are conservatives leaving the state.
ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: Once a week, bright and early, my wife calls a close female friend in Vegas for worship talk. Before the worship begins, they talk of other things. The woman in Vegas owns a moving company, and she informed my wife of a growing trend: conservatives moving to Texas. In fact, right after the election, this company moved 4 families to Texas! And, yes, she knew they were all conservative families.
On the negative side, I hate to see conservatives leave a swing state (Nevada), but I did the same thing two decades ago. My wife and I left California for Arizona and Nevada.
But we brought our Neanderthal conservative values with us.
Something to consider...
Just like termites.
Geez, Minnesota is 45th out of 50, yet we have one of the lowest unemployment rates around. I’m still scratching my head on that one. I can only assume it’ll get worse.
Oh no....there goes the neighborhood. They screwed up CA, bankrupting it, so now they are bringing their lousy politics with them to screw up TX.
If someon comes from CA, don’t sell them a house or give them a job.
I lived in Tulsa in the early 80s. The recession was hitting some of the northern and northeast states. Tulsa’s unemployment rate was about 2.8%.
The Tulsa Mayor went on TV and exclaimed to those in the northern states: ‘We have jobs! Come on down!’
And they did.
Every 3rd vehicle on the streets was an out-of-stater. Most were from Illinois and Michigan, but other states were represented.
By about 1983/84 the recession was hitting Tulsa. Unemployment shot up. You couldn’t BUY a job at McDonald’s. The ‘official’ UE rate was nearly 9% and the ‘unofficial’ UE was nearer 13%.
It took Tulsa nearly 2 decades to recover.
CA has one-third of the nation's welfare population. Who the Hell do you think are on welfare? 38% of the population is Hispanic, most of them Mexican-Americans and illegals from Mexico. The out of wedlock birthrate for Hispanics is 50%. They have the highest school dropout rate.
So after they have trashed CA and made it unlivable, they want out. And they will do the same to Texas what they did to CA.
“”I doubt the liberals are the ones leaving.””
True. We left for GA 6 years ago and we’re sure not liberals...50+ years of residence there for me (moved there from NY state)and my husband was born there.
“If someone comes from CA, don’t sell them a house or give them a job.”
The newcomers to NJ aren’t looking for either; they are looking for freebies (including Section 8 housing, food stamps, and welfare). They also need a sterile delivery room for their anchor babies, and all services provided in Spanish.
my sister inlaw (a liberal lesbian) voted voted voted then moved away because she cannot afford to live in Cali anymore. Conyers GA is blessed with her voting habits now. She cannot afford to move back, so good riddance to her, but the damage is done here. I am looking to move out when her parents die, (she refused to stay here and help out). I have been dumped on again.
Bookmarked.
” - - - The American people and businesses are voting with their feet - - - “
Americans are repeating what the East Germans did in the 1990’s: doing an end run around Commie constructed financial walls.
Will the fate of Commie Obamanation follow fate of Commie California? The 47 % on the Entitlement Welfare Wagon want to know!
To paraphrase Karl Marx: ‘All with ability come to TEXAS, all with needs go to California, or back home to Mexico.’
BTW, this pitter-patter of fleeing feet just might, could, become known as ‘The Revised Romney Plan of Self Migration.’
Texas needs to erect signs near El Paso and Amarillo to head off the influx.
Signs should point northward and say “Marijuana is now legal in Colorado. Go there instead.”
I think they create an impression of life in Louisiana that keeps most Californians away from the state.
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