Once more:

March 18, 2004


Who's Outsourcing Whom?
by Radley Balko

Radley Balko is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

Airwaves and newspapers are abuzz of late with talk about the loss of manufacturing jobs, the offshoring of tech jobs, immigration, and general alarmism about the "outsourcing" of the American worker.

We hear lots of talk about exactly why (and if) this is happening, but rarely do pundits and commentators look at the relationship between companies moving plants overseas, and the kinds of tax and regulatory policies employed by the states they're moving away from. As it turns out, states with business-friendly public policies attract and retain jobs. States with policies hostile to business tend to lose them.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, for example, the five states losing the most jobs between 1993 and 2000 were, in order, California, New York, Michigan, Texas and Ohio. According to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Massachusetts also rank near the bottom, particularly when you take jobs as a percentage of population.
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It's not that long an article. Read the whole thing.