Employees in right-to-work states can buy a lot more stuff with their money than their counterparts in union shop states, according to a new study from a Michigan economic think-tank.
Apparently, the cost of living in right-to-work states is so much lower than in the union shop states that right-to-work employees have higher purchasing power.
“For example, Texas per-capita income was $37,098 but would have a purchasing power of $49,700 in the state of New York in 2007,” according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “New York’s per-capita income was $47,852.”
The report comes as a response to President Obama, who attacked Michigan’s right-to-work law — a bill that allows employees to opt out of a union — as anti-worker.
“These so called right to work laws, they don’t have to do with economics — they have everything to do with politics,” Obama said during a trip to Michigan in December. “What they’re really doing is trying to talk about the right to work for less money.”
“Adjusting to cost-of-living also changes the lists of states with the highest and lowest incomes,” the Mackinac Center also argues. “Natural-resources rich Wyoming becomes the second-wealthiest state and Virginia, Florida and Texas make it to the top 10. Of the 22 right-to-work states that existed in 2007, only three were in the the bottom 15 — Mississippi, Utah and Idaho.”
