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Why Republican Governance Sucks, Part 7: Vote Democratic for Workers' Rights [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-09

In an earlier diary in this series, I discussed the data on how blue states perform better than red states in poverty rates and minimum wage. Now let’s take a closer look at the conditions for labor across the various states, going beyond minimum wage.

Many organizations publish lists of “best” and “worst” states for all kinds of dimensions of well-being and policy, and many of these are focused on composite measures. Here I’ll focus on a composite measure that incorporates three dimensions: Oxfam America’s ranking of best and worst states to work in. First is wage policies; this is not simply minimum wage, but the ratio of minimum wage to the cost of living, tipped minimum wage versus regular minimum wage, and more. Second is worker protections: mandates for sick or family leave, protections for farm workers, etc. Third (and last) is the right of labor to organize: the presence of “right to work” laws and other anti-union measures. Overall scores could range from 0 to 100. The article also provides scores by state for each of the three separate dimensions, but here I’ll consider only the overall scores.

Top 10 states to work in

California 85.1 Oregon 83.5 New York 83.1 Washington 75.8 New Jersey 71.9 Illinois 70.7 Massachusetts 70.6 Connecticut 70.3 Colorado 68.8 Minnesota 66.9

That’s 10 blue states.

Bottom 10 states to work in

North Carolina 5.5 Mississippi 8.3 Georgia 9.9 Alabama 10.8 South Carolina 12.2 Tennessee 12.5 Texas 14.9 Utah 16.8 Wyoming 19.2 Kentucky 19.4

8 red and 2 swing states.

Oxfam took their analysis a step further and did a separate calculation focused on women in the workplace. This revised some of the measures to a more female-centric viewpoint (for example, tipped minimum wage versus cost of living for a family of three; protections against sexual harassment; and right of public school teachers (mostly women) to unionize).

The results? The top 10 states are, in order, Oregon, New York, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Jersey (9 blue, 1 swing). The bottom 10? Starting again with the worst, Mississippi, North Carolina, Alabama, Utah, Georgia, Wyoming, Texas, South Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia (10 red).

Today’s take-home message: Vote Democratic for fairness to workers!

Note on methodology: The Oxfam link provides details of their methodology. In general, composite measures are scores or rankings based on some algorithmic computation using two or more different measures for each observation. Any such composite is open to debate and criticism over the specific elements chosen for inclusion or exclusion, weighting applied to the different elements, and other aspects of methodology. However, incorporating multiple measures is often more defensible than using a single indicator (which could be even more open to questions about its appropriateness), especially when looking at aspects of well-being that are conceptually broad.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/9/2302337/-Why-Republican-Governance-Sucks-Part-7-Vote-Democratic-for-Workers-Rights?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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