By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
You may’ve seen that new study out this week claiming there are over 2 million New Jerseyans living in poverty. Legal Services of New Jersey adjusted for cost of living in arriving at its shocking conclusion, noting how a family of four earning between $64,238 to $73,371 isn’t able to tread water anymore in the Garden State.
As it turns out, Save Jerseyans, this is a blue state phenomenon, so it’s probably time for your liberal Aunt Sue and Cousin Marty to revisit their “income inequality” talking points before this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.
Blue states – and states with higher minimum wages – tend to have larger gaps between their poor and wealthy residents than red state economic rivals according to the latest available data.
“Northeastern states and now California are being economically bled to death by their pro-growth rivals, especially in the South. Toyota didn’t leave California for Texas for the weather,” explained The Daily Signal‘s Stephen Moore in examining the evidence. “The latest IRS report on interstate migration provides further confirmation: The states that lost the most taxpayers (as a percent of their population) were Illinois, New York, Rhode Island and New Jersey.”
Tell us something we don’t know.
Liberals tend to obsess over the gap, or cost of living but, logically, there’s only one possible X factor at work here that can explain what’s happening: the cost of job creation. We’ve discussed this issue a million times here at Save Jersey. As taxes rise in high minimum wage states New Jersey, the “rich” folks who create jobs, invest in business growth, consume goods, and pay the property taxes move to states like Texas where their money goes a lot further. Between 2004 and 2008 (the McGreevey/Codey/Corzine years), New Jersey lost an upwards of $70 billion to outward migration by literally taxing it away.
Who stands to suffer the most from this trend?
Those 2 million New Jerseyans who can’t afford to escape.
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Unaffected: 1) the “underprivileged”, who get their welfare pile from the state, rain or shine, 2) unionized employees, whose income is tied to inflation, 3) people too stupid to care. Not so surprisingly, these three groups also support Democrats.