Last month, CNBC ranked Georgia as the best state in the country in which to do business, a fact that Gov. Nathan Deal naturally seized upon in his re-election bid.
“It is the fulfillment of the goal that I had when I was first elected,” the governor said.
But let’s turn to the experts, which in this case means you:
According to CNBC, we won that top ranking in part because we have the nation’s best workforce in the country. You know this state. You live here, you work here. Do you believe we have the best workforce in the country?
To be honest, I do not. Out of the 47 states for which data are available, Georgia ranks 45th in high-school graduation rates. Only Nevada and New Mexico do worse. So given the importance of education in the modern workforce, it would seem impossible for such a state to boast the best workforce in the country.
Let me ask the experts a second question:
According to CNBC, Georgia also boasts the best transportation infrastructure in the country. You live here, you work here. You drive our increasingly pothole-ridden roads; you’ve been stuck in traffic on the top end of the Perimeter. Is it conceivable that a state that ranks 49th in per capita transportation spending boasts the country’s best transportation infrastructure?
Now, one more question: According to Scott Cohn of CNBC, the network has been ranking states for competitiveness since 2007, and in all that time, Georgia has never finished out of the top 10. It appears that we’ve been doing everything right, year after year.
Again, you know this state. Have those high ratings produced tangible results: good-paying jobs, a strong economy, an improving quality of life? I can tell you what the numbers say. The numbers say that by any measure — per capita income, median household income, productivity per capita — we have been tumbling down the state rankings for a decade or more.
CNBC refuses to divulge how its rankings are reached, in the past referring to the system as its “black box.” However, it admits depending heavily on advice from groups that value low wages, low business taxes and lucrative taxpayer subsidies for business relocation. And that may explain a mystery or two.
Take the workforce ranking. The data show that every year, average Georgians earn less and less, falling further and further behind their fellow Americans. To the people who live here, that’s a bad thing. To businesses chasing the lowest-wage workforce possible, it’s a good thing. We experience it as decline, they view it as progress. If we’re doing exactly what their model demands, yet things are getting worse, I’d suggest their model is flawed.
At the moment, the debate about economic strategy is being carried out in the context of the governor’s race between Deal and Democrat Jason Carter. While that’s appropriate, the debate is bigger than that, and it has to extend well beyond November.
If our ambition is to be a magnet for low-wage jobs lured here temporarily by hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, then we’re doing the right thing by allowing our course to be set by CNBC and Site Selection magazine. But you live here; you may be raising children here. How does Georgia rank in YOUR listing?
