Texasfail

Matt Yglesias takes on Tom DeLay's assertion that Texas is a "wealthy state" because Texans "work hard", and has this to say:

One problem here is that Texas isn’t a wealthy state. Its median household income of $47,548 made it 28th in the country. Below average, in other words. New Jersey is second, California is eighth, and New York is nineteenth. Indeed, of the top ten states in per capita income nine are “blue” states...

The exception is Alaska, whose wealthy is due not to “hard work” on the part of the population or a business-friendly policy environment but to the combination of substantial natural resource wealth and a small population. Texas is like a poor man’s Alaska, with the substantial natural resource wealth but with the wealth spread across a much greater population. Absent oil, Texas would probably look more like its even poorer neighbors Louisiana (46), Oklahoma (44), Arkansas (49), and New Mexico (45).

FAIL. Yglesias fails to adjust for local prices. Anyone who has actually lived in Texas would probably notice that just about everything is cheaper here - food, gas, and especially housing. A $47,548 income in Texas goes a lot farther than a $47,548 income in California or New Jersey.

It is also unclear how much oil really contributes to Texan prosperity. In the 70s and 80s, during the Texas oil boom, employment in Texas closely tracked the oil price, but since the 90s the two have been completely decoupled. Texas' economy has been massively diversified since the 80s, and the state's per capita income has grown strongly even though its oil production is barely a quarter of its 1981 peak.

Saying that, without oil, Texas would have an economy similar to Oklahoma or Arkansas is ridiculous. Texas is far more urbanized, and urbanization has a strong feedback effect on growth. Texas also has a coastline, unlike most of the states named.

So Yglesias is just plain wrong about Texas. How about DeLay? He claims Texans "work hard," but in terms of the percentage of the population that is employed, the state comes in 40th (California is 43d and New Jersey is 24th). In the manufacturing sector, which is all I could find data for, Texans work approximately the same number of hours as Californians or New Jersians.

So no, Texans do not "work harder" than people from other states. FAIL. Conservatives often like to repeat the theory that low taxes --> people work more --> more wealth, but it just doesn't match with reality. And to point out that Tom DeLay himself is well known to be a jackass, a crook, a liar, and a fool would just be kind of redundant at this point.

The truth? Texas is a highly urbanized state with a big population and a lot of extra land. We are neither an impoverished petrostate nor a laissez-faire conservative business paradise. And we're not going to be seceding anytime soon, so get over it, people.