Dr. Richard Vedder, Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University, was quoted in serveral Labor Day stories about the economics of job creation and wages.
WorkplaceChoice.org’s Trey Kovacs, in a story on “How to Raise All Worker Wages,” cites Vedder’s report An Interstate Analysis of Right to Work Laws, “which presents the results of an economic analysis of the impact of right-to-work laws on ‘state economies, and ranks states’ per capita income loss from not having an RTW law,’ while controlling for variables like population growth, manufacturing, and education level. The study finds a statistically significant and positive relationship between economic growth in a state and the presence of a right-to-work law.”
Heartland.org’s Michael LaFaive, in ‘Winning’ Economic Policies Combine for States’ Success,” wrote, “Economist Richard Vedder, a member of the Mackinac Center’s Board of Scholars, examined population changes and other possible explanations including climate, taxes, population and other variables and found ‘without exception, in all the estimations, a statistically significant positive relationship … was observed between the presence of right-to-work laws and net migration.’ Seven of the 15 highest growth states since 1990 had no income tax. Six others maintained rates below the national average unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. Generally speaking, right-to-work states outperform forced-unionization states, as 9 of the nation’s best state economies are also right-to-work states.”
Cincinnati columnist Greg Lawson writes in “Opinion: Ohioans have earned the right to work“:
Ohio was hit hard during the first decade of the century. Between 2000 and 2010, the state lost nearly 620,000 private-sector jobs – or more than twice the population of Cincinnati. Only Michigan lost more jobs during the same period. And it’s no coincidence that Michigan joined the ranks of the right-to-work states last year in an effort to create more opportunity for its citizens, and is now poised to outpace Ohio’s job growth prospects.
But workers in right-to-work states don’t just have more jobs to choose from; they tend to make more money, too. As Richard Vedder estimated in The Buckeye Institute’s 2012 report, “Ohio Right to Work: How the Economic Freedom of Workers Enhances Prosperity,” the average family of four would have earned approximately $12,000 more per year if Ohio had become a right-to-work state in 1977.
Bennington (VT) Banner Rob Roper in “Vermonters support right to work” wrote: “But Vermont citizens’ overwhelming embrace of the Right to Work concept reflects good common sense as well as fairness. A recent study by Richard Vedder and Jonathan Robe of the Competitive Enterprise Institute shows that Right to Work laws have rewarded their citizens with more jobs and more money in their pockets. ‘Over the 35-year period [between 1977-2012], nationwide total employment grew by 71 percent. RTW states significantly outpaced this average, with employment growing by 105.3 percent. Non-RTW states lagged behind both, with an employment growth of only 50.0 percent.'”
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