Despite What You’ve Heard, Red States Handled COVID Much, Much Better Than Blue States
This is no surprise to me. The debates since initial reopening began in May 2020 have raged but not its a settled issue. Red States did better. Lots better. There was no greater mistake made in response to the China virus than the lockdowns.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
One of the genius elements of the U.S. Constitution was its allowance for competing models of success and failure. It did so by giving states great autonomy under the law while limiting what the federal government can do. In the wake of a massive pandemic and a growing political divide among Americans, we’re seeing that concept work its magic.
Two new reports that look at how the blue and red states and cities have performed during the COVID pandemic show it’s no contest. Those that hewed to the Red State model of lower taxes, less regulation, and respect for the rule of law thrived – while those that followed the “woke” blue-state model, built on socialist top-down control, forced equality, and divisive racial identity politics, suffered.
One of the new studies , by Phil Kerpen of The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, Casey Mulligan of the University of Chicago, and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, and published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, ranked states by how they performed in three major areas during the pandemic: economics, education, and mortality.
That study, for good reason, has garnered much attention. It shows that red states, in general, beat blue states hands down during the pandemic, largely due to the latter’s dedication to damaging COVID lockdowns.
“Shutting down their economies and schools was by far the biggest mistake governors and state officials made during COVID, particularly in blue states,” said Moore, a co-founder of the Committee To Unleash Prosperity .
New Jersey was the worst-performing state, while neighboring blue-state giant New York was next, ranked 49th. Also flunking out were California, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
“They had high age-adjusted death rates, they had high unemployment and significant GDP losses, and they kept their schools shut down much longer than almost all other states,” according to the study.
So who did best? Utah, Nebraska, Vermont, Montana, South Dakota – and Florida.
Meanwhile, a second study from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that there has been massive population movement away from large blue-state cities toward red-state cities.
From July 2020 to July 2021, five major blue-state metropolitan areas hemorrhaged population to red states, as the Census table below shows. Note that the greater New York area was worst, but deep-blue California has three of the top five and actually lost more than New York, overall.
The Census numbers are further confirmed by an annual report from North American Van Lines that rounds out the picture of a demographic tidal wave from blue to red states. It found that the leading outbound states for major moves were Illinois, California, New Jersey, Michigan, and New York.
Where did everyone go? The top states for inbound migration last year were South Carolina, Idaho, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida. From blue to red.
“States with a lower cost of living and lower taxes continued to pull Americans from more expensive states in 2021,” the North American Van Lines report said. “With a major shift toward remote work for several occupations, along with continually rising housing costs, people are rapidly moving from the coasts and Midwest to the South and Southwest.”
“The pattern here is clear,” observes the Foundation for Economic Education , regarding the startling demographic shift. “Americans are fleeing highly regulated, highly taxed states. They are flocking to freer states.”
These changes could have long-lasting economic and political impacts. Blue states are likely to get bluer, but also less populous. Red states are likely to get redder, but more populous. The demographic, economic, and political balance between the red and blue is tipping, and fast.
Will the blue states act to stem the human tide?
Perhaps not. California, for instance, wants to slash the workweek for those employed at large companies to 32 hours a week. Assuming many if not most of those are now working 40 hours a week, that’s a possible 20% plunge in productivity.
So expect a new wave of major corporate departures from the no-longer-Golden State that will further wreck its already struggling economy .
As for New York, its leaders seem to think crime-ridden streets and more government spending will do the trick. Sorry, but New York’s losing its wealthiest citizens after years of misrule.
Far-left Democrats have an iron lock on government in Albany, so tax cuts and a crackdown on crime seems highly unlikely. In the meantime, one key group is leaving the state and city of New York in droves: Millionaires.
“New York’s share of the nation’s total millionaire earner population dropped to 9.9%, down from 12.7% as of 2010, the year after the state enacted a supposedly temporary and ultimately permanent higher rate on millionaire earners,” noted E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy think tank.
Good riddance you say? Millionaires pay 40% of taxes in New York. So losing so many to Florida, Texas and other red states is a disaster. All New York will suffer.
Truth is, America is being re-made, moving van by moving van, family by family, as the states’ demographic profiles and political leanings undergo dramatic shifts. It all points to a possible shift in political power toward conservative-leaning red states and away from once-dominant blue states. But how big that shift is remains to be seen.
As we’ve said before , the red-state model works. It has proved itself in good times and bad. Americans, you do have a choice: Red pill, or blue pill. Which is it going to be?
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
It's official
Wow! You must have a very very interesting definition of the word "official".
Have you seen the dramatic loss of population Nuly 2920-July 1, 2021 in NYC, LA, SF? Those that wanted to get away and could do so did so. Unlike NY, not all of California biggest city losses left the state. Some left for more red areas within as Ca’s red counties grew population and some who could work from home while having an LA or SF job moved to Redding where there were no lockdowns or mandates compared to most of the state and schools quickly reopened.
What does any of that blather have to do with Vic's definition of "official"?
Simply emphasized both what he said and and what the article and other sources have said on the matter.
So it has absolutely nothing to do with what I was commenting about.
The stats backup what was being said and those studies make it official. Red did better than blue. Period!
It's a working paper which means it has not been peer reviewed. Until then:
I would never expect that the bicoastal elitists of the university class would accept this research no matter how correct it actually is.
Exactly! From the above
Here are the facts. This is a listing of states' deaths from covid.
Please note that the first 5 are red states
What Utah did right was to be less populated. Population density is what spreads a disease.
Funny isn't it. The states listed in his pic show the states that scored best have the lower populations.
Also isn't daily mail a British tabloid?
It is indeedy. Read The Guardian if you want decent news.
The Guardian? I think not.
Other than The Sunday Times or the Times of London. You seem to forget lived there. The Guardian is a tabloid, but it wasn't always. At least it doesn't have a page 6 girl.
And none of the states over New Jersey 375 per or New York’s 350 per would consider the educational and psychological cost on their kids or the loss of freedom, liberty, rights, or the unemployment economic losses policies like New York or New Jersey cost them to get “down” to those numbers. I know that according to the current governing class and the bi coastal elites it is sacrilege to even mention the economy or even the bill of rights in connection with the China virus as is the use of that term for it.
It was not the only source that covered this and not the one that was originally seeded. Just about all conservative media reported this.
But it does have as big a political bias as the Daily Mail does.
Nothing you said there, is a statistical fact like I presented. It is just your opinion, which you are entitled to, but still has nothing to do with masks.
All papers have a political bias, including the Daily Mail.
Different states in our federalist system with the states being the laboratory of democracy did things in different ways to deal with the pandemic and all its effects. I agree with the earlier JHU research and now this that overall everything considered and taken into account that red states and defiant red counties in large blue states had the better results.
No one denies that. That’s what their editorial and op Ed pages are for….to express such outlooks on key issues.
Actually lots of people did lose individual rights, economic freedom, and religious liberty due to the China virus and the way people responded to it. We had to use the courts to recover all three at different times and places from a variety of blue mayors, governors, and a President who let their love of their new found powers go to their heads.
Are they meaningless. I say that they are not! They assure that there will never again be widespread compliance with any blue government dictates regarding this virus at any level and that their abuse of emergency powers this time greatly weakened to strength of government credibility for the next one.
The studies mean a lot. They show the truth that the red states all around and overall did much better than blue ones.
That's odd, considering who is here:
btw, you might want to take note that many of them are Republicans, perhaps more than half.
No one said that there weren’t any rich left there or what their party was. Just that they were among those fleeing the state and their outsized impact on city and state tax revenues. Per capita San Francisco lost more. Both our states lost a congressional seat and an electoral vote.
Being that you are not a Nyer, you don't know that our seniors have always left for warmer weather and that we are always getting newcomers. We are virtually at a net-zero with those who leave and those who stay. Our wealthy are not leaving because they can afford multiple homes and can winter anywhere, as well as summer in the Hamptons.
I don't speak for California, since I am not from there.
That's probably the explanation for the Black Reverse Migration underway as well.
Sean Hannity lives there and describes the situation there almost daily and always mentions that only his employer contract keeps him living there and that with out it he’d be joining the exodus to Florida or Texas in a NY minute. He’s constantly as a born and raised and now current NYer urging all who can to get the heck out and enjoy the better climate and lower taxes of just about anywhere else.
I am and because of it I speak out against it and it’s evil state government high tax and regulatory regime and against the dens of iniquity that are our coastal urban areas. I do not speak out against the parts trying to create our own separate state or to transfer our boundaries so that we along with some Oregon counties would be in Idaho instead.
Republicans elimination of Jim Crow laws and other traditional democrat racism in the south has made the south appealing for African Americans to move to or in some cases return to, reversing an out migration caused by southern democrats.