Our two biggest cities—the economic engines of the state—have failed to grow as well. The City of St. Louis is emptying out, dropping from 622,236 in 1970 to 301,578 in 2020, though the larger metropolitan area has absorbed much of that loss. Kansas City saw dramatic population drops in the 80s and 90s, though recent growth has brought us up to over 500,000 around where we were in 1970. (Even still, the Kansas suburbs have been growing at a much higher rate than the city proper for decades.)

U-Haul publishes a migration index each year. For 2024, Missouri ranked 28th for growth.

Where is everyone fleeing to? The largest beneficiary of Missourian departures is Kansas—which is not a surprise to those of us here in the eastern part of the state. Kansas’s suburbs offer better schools, seemingly better-maintained infrastructure, and lower crime. Second is Illinois, with Texas, Arkansas and Florida rounding out the top 5 destinations.

(Aside: Yes, Florida and Texas have better climates than Missouri, but so do plenty of other states. Florida and Texas also have no state income tax. The Tax Foundation reports that low-tax states saw greater population growth than high-tax states.)

Missouri’s portion of the national GDP is shrinking as well. We produced 2% of the nation’s GDP in 1997. Today we produce only 1.5%.

Missouri’s leaders, at the state and local level, must decide if they are satisfied with our slow and steady decline. If they aren’t, what are their plans to reverse it? It can’t be more of the same, where we have driven up housing costs through foolish energy policies, or failed to deliver basic public safety. It certainly cannot be a continuation of former Governor Mike Parson’s profligate spending.

The Show-Me Institute has some ideas, thank you for asking, and most of them are about helping Missourians by getting government out of the way of families, businesses and entrepreneurs.

Not everyone will agree with our proposals. That is fine. But every leader should be asked: if not these policies, then what is your plan for reversing Missouri’s glide path to oblivion?

The post Missouri is Shrinking appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

What’s the cost of this legislative inaction been so far? From failing to establish a parents’ bill of rights to making no progress on reforming taxes, priorities of all sorts are increasingly in peril as the end of the session draws ever nearer with each passing fruitless legislative day.

Congressional maps are only part of the problem, of course. The main problem is that the Senate supermajority, bizarrely, cannot agree among themselves on what major legislative priorities to pass and when to test the commitment of the minority to a filibuster of the majority’s plans. Bills are filibustered. Resolutions are filibustered. The journal (!) is filibustered. And economic freedom and school choice and transparency and tax reform go by the wayside.

The result is that instead of fending off just one faction of filibusterers, the Senate now has two sizable filibustering factions: the liberal minority and, now, the conservative caucus.

It’s easy to dust off the old saw that this is just how the Missouri Legislature operates, but years of rewarding filibusters in the Senate has invited more of them and made filibusters the norm rather than the exception to managing legislative business. You’d be forgiven if you thought the legislative priorities of Missouri’s conservative supermajority were a bit unclear, especially in contrast to states like Arizona and Florida that committed to transparency in curricula and acted at the first opportunity. If not getting things done in 2022 is the intent of representatives and senators, well, mission accomplished. But I don’t think that was the deal taxpayers thought they were making with their elected officials when they put them in office.

Whatever the majority’s objectives might be for 2022, the clock is winding down on them. Missourians deserve far more than has been delivered by the legislature, and so far, the session has been a giant disappointment.

The post In Another Grinding Legislative Session, Missourians’ Priorities Getting Ignored Again appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

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The post Census Data Brings Bad News, Florida’s Plan For Schools, Saying No to $8 Million appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Over the past decade, Missouri’s population grew by only about 160,000 residents, or 2.8 percent. This growth badly trails the national rate of 7.4 percent and every neighboring state except for Illinois. In fact, only eleven states in the country experienced less population growth than Missouri. Missouri dropped one spot in total population rank, from 18th to 19th. This is a significant decline from the state’s high-water mark of 5th at the turn of the 20th century.

Census results are important because they have real-world implications for states. Aside from being a measure of a state’s relative desirability, these population totals determine the apportionment of representation in Congress over the next decade. After losing a seat following the 2010 census, Missouri’s population is still sufficient to maintain eight congressional districts for another ten years, but Illinois was not so lucky. Along with Missouri’s neighbor to the east, six other states will be losing a congressional seat: California, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. States gaining these lost seats will be Florida, Colorado, Montana, North Carolina, Oregon, and Texas, which gets two additional seats.

While it can be difficult to fully understand what is driving the country’s population shifts, there appears to be a relationship with cumulative tax burdens. The state’s losing seats rank 1st, 8th, 10th, 18th, 23rd, and 26th in total tax burdens. On the other hand, the state’s gaining seats rank 11th, 21st, 32nd, 34th, 43rd, and 47th (Texas). While this isn’t the only factor in migration, people are indisputably moving from high-tax states to states with lower taxes.

State and local governments competing for residents via tax rates is not a new idea, and is something my colleagues have written about for years. Charlies Tiebout originally proposed the idea that people would “vote with their feet” by moving to communities with their preferred level of public services and taxes. If Missouri’s population growth continues to lag much of the country, there’s reason to believe the state’s taxes are contributing to the problem. Over the next decade, it should be a priority for Missouri’s elected officials to bring more people to the Show-Me State, or we could face the same fate as Illinois.

The post Missouri’s Population Growth Is Still Lagging appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Distinguishing between short-term and long-term poverty could be a wise move, but how valuable would a single snapshot be in describing a multi-generational problem? Not very. While Missouri should know who is receiving entitlements and for how long, there is a better way to collect that information than what is being proposed.

Utah’s Intergenerational Poverty Initiative is now in its seventh year and has five years of data that allows the state to more accurately measure intergenerational poverty and the success of its various anti-poverty efforts. It also has a data dashboard that shows current data and the trends in intergenerational poverty since 2014. Unfortunately, similarly precise information is unavailable for Missouri, although there are ways to approximate the extent of cyclical poverty in our state.

For example, in my recent essays, “Intergenerational Poverty in Missouri” and “Creating Pathways for Self-Sufficiency,” I estimated the scope of intergenerational poverty in Missouri with a combination of U.S. Census data and economic mobility data. Such extrapolation gives us a general picture of intergenerational poverty in Missouri, but detailed and up-to-date data would be that much more helpful for policymaking purposes.

The years of data Utah has is important for establishing trends, measuring the effectiveness of programs, and having the ability to direct resources to where they could do the most good—in other words, making the most out of the state’s anti-poverty spending. It is doubtful any of that could be accomplished by the singular study that would be commissioned by this bill.

If Missouri’s policymakers are serious about addressing intergenerational poverty and making wise use of welfare expenditures, they should consider a longer-term initiative like Utah’s. As I explain in my essays, intergenerational poverty harms not just those trapped in poverty, but also the rest of the state via costly welfare spending and slower growth.  Ongoing data collection could be well worth the investment if Missouri would use that information to effectively and efficiently move people up and out of poverty. 

The post Missouri Should Be Measuring Intergenerational Poverty, but How We Do It Matters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This new notoriety (from Google Fiber) and all the press and tweets that went with it gave us a new way to tell the Kansas City story, Tech entrepreneurs discovered that Kansas City was a great place to start up. They moved here just to plug in to Google Fiber and gigabit connectivity.

Well, maybe not. Google Fiber came to the Kansas City area in 2011, the same year Mayor James took office. Prior to that, information jobs in the region, according to the U.S. Census, had been sliding downward. The number of these jobs slipped from 52,000 in 2008 to 39,000 in 2011, a loss of one-quarter. Since then, the numbers through 2013 are pretty flat.

We don’t need to rely solely on Census data. The Show-Me Institute’s Joe Miller recently reviewed a study by the San Diego Economic Development Corporation that ranked cities based on the health of their tech scenes. Miller concluded that the tech industry in Saint Louis is “not a large player nationally, nor is it a terribly significant driver of,” the economy. The outlook for Kansas City is even worse. Of the country’s 50 largest metros, Kansas City ranked 34th, behind peer cities St. Louis (28th) and Oklahoma City (24th) but ahead of Louisville (39th).

Kansas City ranked even lower (42nd) for tech talent, a measure based on tech employee retention rates, percent of population with computer or math degrees, and the number of computer science degrees being awarded. The Mayor recognized as much in his remarks,

Our tech companies need more trained help—people who can manage the flow of information and data, write code, fix equipment and implement creative ideas. And lots of people in our city need jobs, or better-paying jobs to support their families.

While more recent Census data may show an uptick in information jobs and employers in the Kansas City region, for all the spending and talk of momentum and people moving to Kansas City “just to plug in,” the data suggest otherwise. 

The post Kansas City’s Tech Inertia appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Not all transportation modes are of equal importance in the Kansas City area. The region’s dispersed population and employment mean that most residents use highways and streets to commute. In Jackson, Clay, and Platte Counties, more than 90% of commuters drove to get to work (according to U.S. Census data from 2009 to 2013). The next most popular form of getting to work is actually just not going anywhere (that is, working at home). Aside from commuting, much of the metro area’s freight traffic uses the highways, and the region’s bus networks also make use of city streets.

Highways and streets are indisputably the most-used part of Kansas City’s transportation network. The only rival for importance may be the freight rail network, as Kansas City is the nation’s second largest freight rail hub. That might lead one to predict that most of the spending in the Kansas City area’s Transportation Improvement Program from 2016–2020, which includes, “. . . all federally funded surface transportation projects and all regionally significant surface transportation projects planned for the Kansas City metro area during federal fiscal years 2016–2020,” would be for highways and streets. That prediction would be wrong.

In reality, 56% of all regional and Missouri-side spending ($1.35 billion) will be for public transportation projects like the bus system and the streetcar. Road and bridge projects only get 32% of the pie, with “complete streets” and pedestrian/bike projects combining for around 11% of spending. These numbers, if anything, overestimate Kansas City’s commitment to road and bridge investments, because the vast majority of spending on roads comes from the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT), which is tasked with maintaining the state network, whatever the ideological bent of Kansas City regional planners. MoDOT does not handle non-state highway projects. 

If we take MoDOT out of the equation, only about 12 percent of the region's spending ($124 million) is going to roads and bridges. That’s only slightly more than is going to the streetcar starter line, which supporters admit is not really about transportation at all. Seventy-two percent of non-MoDOT transportation spending is going to transit, which, as of 2014, accounted for less than 2 percent of the regions commuters.

How long can Kansas City leaders go on ignoring the transportation modes everyone relies on while lavishing funds on modes few people use if they still expect to have a functioning system? 

The post Kansas City Prioritizes Transportation Few Use appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In 1950 Saint Louis was the eighth largest city in the United States with a population of 856,796. According to the 2014 Census estimate, Saint Louis has two-thirds fewer people than in 1950.

Such a dramatic decrease in population has major effects on local government. As the population declines, taxable income and sales leave the area and revenue declines with it. Lower population levels exacerbate other issues such as abandoned buildings, lower property values, and, as a result, fewer funds for public schools.

Saint Louis is a city that has much to offer. So why are people continuing to leave? What should the city do to halt the deflating population?

The post The Incredible Shrinking City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We have shown census tracts representing Saint Louis’ population distribution before. However, a different way to view the data is to consider metro population within certain distances from a central point (in this case city hall), allowing easier city-to-city comparisons. When we compare Saint Louis to cities of similar population, we observe that the city has abnormally low population density in its core. According to 2010 Census figures, Saint Louis had the 18th largest MSA population (2,812,896), but only the 31st largest population within 10 miles of city hall. For example, compared to Baltimore, with a slightly smaller population than Saint Louis (2,710,489 in 2010), Saint Louis has a larger metro area but much lower densities close to the city center.

In fact, the area within a mile of the Saint Louis city hall has a lower population density (5,020 per square mile) than most of the rest of the city. This is atypical among peer cities, which have their highest densities downtown (averaging 9,000 per square mile). The map below shows population density in Saint Louis in concentric one-mile rings radiating from city hall:

In addition, contrary to the narrative of a rebounding core, the city’s population density fell most in Saint Louis City from 2000 to 2010, as the map below demonstrates:

Population did increase in certain neighborhoods in the central corridor and in the heart of downtown Saint Louis. And the growth downtown is somewhat misleading because of the incredibly low base it grew from: in 2000, the population density less than one mile from the courthouse was a mere 3,870 persons per square mile. And in the city as a whole, notable neighborhood gains are more than made up for by loses in areas to the north, south, and east of those improving neighborhoods. Looking at the region as a whole, outside of the heart of downtown, population density only showed steady growth in areas further than 25 miles away from city hall.

Saint Louis’ low population density and abnormal population distribution has important implications for the provision of public services. For example, when the type of service provision relies on density (such as with transit), it may be better for the city to model its service on other cities with similar densities rather than ones with similar MSA population totals. In addition, the pretense that Saint Louis’ downtown is (or should be) the dense economic engine of the region that drives much of regional planning may be inappropriate and result in misaligned public services.

However, the abnormal situation of Saint Louis’ downtown is also a reason to hope. Other cities show that there is a market for downtown living, and perhaps if the officials focus on safety and service instead of big-bang projects, organic growth will take hold. Or maybe they’ll build a new football stadium instead.

The post Ditching City Hall: A Saint Louis Development Story appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To answer that question we need to make some assumptions. First, we need an estimate for miles driven. Using national driving data for 2014 from the U.S. Department of Transportation the average male aged 35-54 drove 18,858 miles. The average female in the same age group put 11,464 miles on the car. Adding two teenagers to our household increases mileage driven by 8,206 for a boy and 6,873 for a girl. All told, then, our average family of four put about 45,400 miles on their car(s). If we further assume that the cars driven by our family averaged 25 miles per gallon, our representative family bought 1,816 gallons of gas.

Now for the income effect. At the January 2014 price of $3.00 a gallon, our family would spend about $5,450 a year on gasoline. At the current price of $1.90 (and assuming they do not increase miles driven) their gas bill drops a whopping 37 percent to $3,450. If the average family of four in Missouri had an income of about $72,600 in 2014, an estimate based on updating the 2013 median family income figures from the U.S. Census, their $2,000 savings in gasoline expenditures is equivalent to a 2.75 percent increase in household income. Not a bad raise for our average Missouri family!

What brought about this unexpected windfall? Increased oil production in the United States has been one of the most significant developments leading to more competition in world oil markets. With OPEC’s control over oil prices curtailed, market forces have pushed oil prices and, therefore, gas prices down. Whether oil and gas prices remain at their current levels is unknown. What is clear, however, is that competition has once again benefited consumers.

The post Lower Gas Prices Produces Higher Spendable Income for Missourians appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Until then, a preview: the county-by-county breakdown of DED tax credit issuances since 1999. The chart encompasses over $2.3 billion in taxpayer money. Population numbers are taken from the 2010 U.S. Census.

Had tax credits been distributed in line with population, each resident would have received the equivalent of $392.53 in tax credit issuances over that time. Six of Missouri’s 115 counties (114+St. Louis city) received at or above this amount. Saint Louis city projects were issued the greatest number of these tax credit dollars, coming in at $1,075,720,353.70. Several counties received none of these tax credits.

More to come.

(To find your county, hold CTRL-F, then type the name into the dialog box.)

The post Who Gets Tax Credits? Distribution of Tax Credits Issued by the Department of Economic Development Since 1999 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Every day, Missouri has approximately 195,000 commuters that come into the state to work. That is the fifth highest total for any state. It is 55,000 more than leave the state to work each day. That ratio (+ 55,000) is the third highest number for any state. In both cases, Missouri trails only states along the eastern seaboard. (Our source for this is the 2000 Census, and we will update these numbers as soon as they are released from the 2010 Census.)

Missouri has low excise taxes. We have the lowest cigarette tax, the sixth lowest gasoline tax, the lowest beer tax, the ninth lowest wine tax, and the third lowest tax on spirits (liquor). What do excise rates and commuter totals have to do with each other?

Low excise taxes serve as an inducement for the 195,000 commuters to Missouri to voluntarily choose to purchase these goods while in Missouri. Missouri gains the tax revenue, and those commuters then bring many of the costs of the externalities of these items back to their home states. Low taxation levels on items that are often bought as part of a special trip serve as an incentive for commuters into Missouri to make those special trips when in Missouri. (This is opposed to, say, lowering the tax on lettuce, which is generally purchased as part of a comprehensive trip to the grocery store.)

These goods (gas, alcohol, tobacco) have other properties that make them a target for purchasing by commuter consumers. They can be purchased very quickly. This is a function of the standard quantity the goods are bought in, and the lack of search costs for most of the products. The reduced search costs are themselves a function of either no brand loyalty (gas) or extreme band loyalty (cigarettes). Among these three goods, only alcohol will generally see comparison shopping, but even there brand loyalty is very strong. These goods also do not spoil. (Cold beer is an exception.) Commuter consumers are not going to buy groceries on their lunch break, or before a long commute home in traffic. Finally, all of these items are more difficult to purchase online than other goods, for fairly obvious reasons and certain legal restrictions.

Missouri’s low excise taxes don’t just benefit Missourians who use these goods. They benefit the entire state by encouraging 195,000 daily commuter consumers to make these purchases while in Missouri. On the other side, they encourage the 140,000 Missourians who leave the state each workday to hold off on these purchases until they return to Missouri. This maximizes the tax revenues received by Missouri, while the costs of the externalities are spread among many states.

NB: As a matter of internal policy, the Show-Me Institute does not hold opinions. All opinions expressed in Show-Me Institute publications and video are those of the respective authors or speakers.

The post Gas, Booze, and Cigs: How Lower Tax Rates Make Money for Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Consider that, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, 3,879,695 Missourians currently live outside of Saint Louis. Consider further that, as my colleague Audrey Spalding recently calculated, the proposal would cost at least $80 for each person living in Missouri. This means that Missourians living outside of Saint Louis will be forced to spend $310.4 million on the project. In other words, this policy would remove $310.4 million from the economy in the rest of the state, and funnel it into Saint Louis.

The editorial board at the St. Louis Business Journal certainly seems to get it:

That this is essentially a St. Louis-only measure is an insult to the rest of the state, making us look like the greedy urban jerks the outstate legislators love to hate. Not to mention our colleagues in Kansas City.

Speaking of our friends in Kansas City, they in particular will see more costs than benefits. Kansas City residents will collectively pay $36.8 million for this policy. However, they are unlikely to receive direct benefits from the policy because they live 235 miles away from Lambert Airport. Is sending $36.8 million to Saint Louis the best use for their money? Could it perhaps be better spent on projects in Kansas City (e.g., education, transportation), or returned to Kansas City residents to spend, save, and invest in the private sector?

Supporters of large publicly funded projects tend to argue that they generate lots of economic activity that resonate across the economy. These, however, are mere conjectures; I am aware of no study that proves it. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that few, if any, spillovers or multipliers arise from targeted tax credit programs. I will elaborate on this point in a future post. (Stay tuned to the blog!)

The money that is spent in this program could otherwise benefit Missourians through a tax reduction or another form of state spending. If the China hub project doesn’t happen, taxpayers will be able to keep a greater percentage of their earnings, which they can then spend on additional goods and services. Much of this economic activity (e.g., hotel stays, restaurant meals) would be generated by individuals in the private sector. However, if the government takes half a billion dollars out of the economy, Missourians won’t be able to spend and invest it themselves, and this economic activity will be lost.

How China Hub Costs Are Diffused, by Region

* Metropolitan Statistical Area, defined by U.S. Census

The post Benefits of China Hub Focused on Saint Louis; All Missouri Taxpayers Forced to Pick Up $480 Million Tab appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This is an issue that we have been tracking very closely at the Show-Me Institute.

Critics argue that joining the lawsuit will be a waste of time and money for Missouri. This argument is not factually true; Missouri will incur few costs by joining. If Koster decided to join the lawsuit, the only cost for the taxpayers of Missouri would be the time it takes for somebody in the attorney general’s office to write the letter, along with the price of a postage stamp — if that.

Although states are free to help offset the costs of the lawsuit, it is completely voluntary. Furthermore, the maximum amount that they may contribute is $5,000. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are 5,988,927 individuals living in Missouri. If they were to split this sum equally, each person would pay less than nine hundredths of one cent to fund Missouri’s contribution to the lawsuit. That’s 9 cents for every 100 residents. Decrying the cost of the lawsuit is a smokescreen argument.

Koster would be wise to free-ride on the Florida lawsuit. Missourians have nothing to lose by joining the lawsuit, but they have much to gain, such as freedom in their health care decisions.

The post Florida Deadline Comes and Goes; Missouri’s Attorney General Is Not Yet On Board appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The other three states — as well as New Hampshire and Tennessee, which tax only interest and dividend income — all stayed at the same number of seats. That means their growth was average, or near average.

All 10 states that lost representation have a state income tax.

According to the Tax Foundation, the eight states gaining seats in congress have an average total tax burden — including taxes on income, sales, and property — ranking of 28.3, on a scale where 1 is the state with the highest tax burden and 50 has the lowest. The 10 states losing seats have an average ranking of 20. If you remove Louisiana from the equation, because of its low tax burden and the fact that that state lost a number of residents after Hurricane Katrina, the remaining nine states have a more striking ranking of 16.7.

Another interesting note is that Washington, which gained a seat, has a high total tax burden but no income tax — and only a month ago, that state’s voters soundly defeated a proposal that would have instituted one.

I don’t claim to have demonstrated causation with this brief review of Census data for a blog post. But the noted examples show a striking correlation between lower taxes overall, and especially the lack of income taxation, for population growth. And when populations grow, economies often grow with them.

To read further Show-Me Institute research about to these topics, please visit the taxation section of our main website.

The post Striking Correlations Between Income Taxes and Congressional Reapportionment appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

An incentive plan designed to lure a $1 billion data center to Columbia got a thumbs-up this week from the Boone County Fire Protection District, which is one of the taxing entities that could be affected by the ambitious economic development effort dubbed “Project Unicorn.”

Rich Miller writes about Project Unicorn in an article on Data Center Knowledge. He expresses the following concerns, which I share:

Is it really a $1 billion project? Or are numbers being inflated to try and sway legislators and local officials whose support [is] essential in assembling tax breaks? So long as the “Unicorn” prospect is cloaked in secrecy, these huge numbers are difficult to substantiate or debunk.

A unicorn, by definition, is an imaginary creature. Are we to believe that this project is imaginary as well?

I ask the same questions that I asked last week: Is this level of subsidy the best use of taxpayer monies, particularly at a time when the state government has decided to make cuts to other services? How much subsidy is the state and local government going to provide to the technology industry in the region?

This part particularly puzzles me:

Even with 50 percent real estate tax abatement, [chairman of Regional Economic Development Inc. Dave] Griggs said that one property that currently pays $503 annually in tax would pay more than $2 million with the development being by Project Unicorn. “When you’re dealing with billions of dollars, a little bit of tax comes out to be a lot,” Griggs said.

Why would schools be excited for Project Unicorn? It abates 100 percent of personal property taxes and up to 50 percent of real estate taxes. They will probably have to provide services to more people, with no increase in revenue. If the project weren’t abated, or if a different project moved in, they would receive all of the revenues. Using the numbers quoted in the article, Project Unicorn would contribute $4 million in estate taxes. Why wouldn’t they be angry that they are missing out on $2 million?

Additionally, from the article:

Griggs said Project Unicorn is focusing on a data center that would create up to 70 jobs that pay an average salary of $70,000. He said that new sales taxes, home purchases and other economic activity — including data center vendors that might set up shop in the same area — would benefit the community.

According to the U.S. Census, the median household income in Columbia was only $33,729 in 1999 (which is the most recent year available). The median household income in the state of Missouri was $37,934. Because they will be stuck subsidizing the employment of people who earn twice as much as they do, individuals and families in Columbia will have less money to spend in the private sector. For this reason, a subsidy of this magnitude could well reduce economic activity in the region.

The post Project Unicorn: Fireworks, Whistles, Details to Follow appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

After being relatively flat for much of the ‘80s and ‘90s, homeownership levels climbed several percentage points in the early 2000’s, peaking at 69 percent in 2004, according to the Census Bureau.

This rate for the United States was indeed flat during this period. However, the author does not disclose the fact the rate hovered around a mean of 64.7 percent between 1984 and 2000 — less than 3 percentage points lower than the peak in 2004. The rate increased only 5 points from 1994 and 2004, from 64 to 69 percent.

Additionally, the author restricted the vertical scale of the graph in a way that makes the increase over time seem large. Looking at an unrestricted version of the chart, this increase is not that significant.

I used annual homeownership rates by state and by metropolitan area data from the U.S. Census to produce the following graphs:

Click graphs to enlarge

Interestingly, the rates of homeownership in the state of Missouri and in the Saint Louis metropolitan area are higher than the rate in the United States. I suspect that this can be attributed to the fact that housing is plentiful and relatively inexpensive in Missouri, and perhaps also to a Midwestern lifestyle that encourages homeownership, among other factors.

Looking at all 50 states, although the homeownership rate for each falls within a range between 50 and 80 percent, there hasn’t been a significant change over time.

Programs that encourage homeownership exist at practically every level in the government. They include: homeownership assistance; property tax relief for new home buyers; homeownership vouchers; housing codes that restrict the number of units in a building; and, the recent federal tax credit for home buyers. However, despite this assistance, it appears that the rate of homeownership remains steady. If it weren’t for these programs, I wonder whether the rate of homeownership would be unaffected or whether it would decrease.

The post Despite Government’s Encouragement, Rate of Homeownership Remains Steady appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

State and local governments face large budget deficits as revenues have stagnated and spending has remained at high levels.

I used the Show-Me Institute’s newest web tool, Interactive Database for Economic Analysis by State, to isolate state and local government employment and payroll data from U.S. Census. Next, I used this inflation calculator from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adjust the data to 2008 dollars.

The following graph shows this information for all states for 2008. Wyoming has the highest number of public employees per capita, at 927, and Nevada had the lowest, at 437. Missouri was in the middle — it was ranked the 29th highest (alternatively, the 23rd lowest) in this category:

The data for Missouri reflect the general growth in the size of government described in the Cato bulletin. From 1993 to 2008, the number of total employees grew by 29 percent, the number of full-time employees grew by 27 percent, and the number of part-time employees grew by 44 percent.

The data also show that payroll is growing at a faster rate than the number of employees. From 1993 to 2008, after adjusting for inflation, total monthly payroll grew by31 percent, full-time payroll grew by 30 percent, and part-time payroll grew by 55 percent:

Given this rate of growth in monthly payroll and number of employees, Missouri’s present budgetary problems are no surprise to me.

The post State and Local Government Employment and Payroll Data in Missouri Follows National Trend appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“The census is the basis of over $400 billion in federal funding,” she said. “The LGBT community is not able to effectively lobby to be recipients of any of that money.”

If advocates believe the Census questions are discriminatory or offensive to any group, they should certainly make that case. However, greater ease in lobbying is not a good reason to add to the list of questions. Census participation is required by law, and it would be an inappropriate invasion of respondents’ privacy to compel them to share their sexual orientation or other personal characteristics that some lobbyists would like statistics on. Similarly, while it would help advocates for funding of medical research if everyone had to reveal their medical histories on the Census, the Census does not gather this information.

Advocates can use other means, like petition drives and rallies, to show lawmakers how many people support their causes.

The post Lobbying Through the Census appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The video was produced by a University of Michigan student for a university-sponsored contest. It won second place. In the clip, students gather numbers representing how many people live in their houses — one takes a big “4,” another a “5,” and so on. The students bring their numbers to a bureaucrat and pile them on his desk. He, in turn, pulls a humongous dollar sign out of a drawer and hands it to them. Words flash across the screen, informing viewers that they can “earn money and recognition” for their communities by participating in the Census.

You have to see it to believe it:

The post University of Michigan Student: Census Participation = Cash appeared first on Show-Me Institute.