| sc94597 said: When it comes to the presidential election things are definitely nationalized, but we've seen in this iteration (and in the midterms) that senate, governor, and even house races are still about local and state politics. That's why swing-state senators did a lot better than Kamala did (or Biden would have) as an example. Utah and Alaska are pretty developed states. Only about .06 points and .04 points less developed than New York and California respectively on HDI. (.931 for Alaska and Utah vs. .937 for New York and .935 for California) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_Human_Development_Index_score Overall, there doesn't seem to be a positive correlation between HDI and Gini coefficients. If anything, it is a slight negative correlation (higher HDI => lower Gini Coefficients.) And similar is visible with GDP per Capita vs. Gini. So being "financially developed" can't be the explanation because the most financial developed countries tend to be more egalitarian, not less. I think these macroeconomic indicators have a lagging effect when it comes to perceptions. People are thinking about the last few years. So that is why despite inflation rates and Gini Coefficients peaking in 2021-2022 people are backlashing now. The problem is that Democrats can't be reacting from election to election. They need long-term plans of how they want to transform American society. Especially as the ostensibly "left-wing" party. Republicans have long-term plans through the likes of the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. Democrats, on the other-hand, are very reactive due to a few decades of being institutionally conservative (preserving of American institutions) and have been stuck in a strategy of "triangulation" since Bill Clinton made it work in the 90's. But it's no longer the 90's. They need to have a positive vision for Americans, push as hard as possible to achieve it, and don't flip flop reactively like they have been. They also need to use examples of how they bettered states and localities as models for what they want to do for the nation as a whole. |
Eh, I think that doesn't really pass the smell test. I mean, you can throw numbers at me all day, but I just don't see how Alaska and NY are all that comparable by basically any eye test. Like, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but it feels like you are boiling things down way too hard into numbers instead of taking a step back and looking at what you are making the data say. I appreciate how hard you are going with the numbers to back up your posts so I don't want to just brush them off and say "but it feels like you're wrong", but it's hard not to. Like, part of the reason Alaska has high wages for jobs that have lower wages elsewhere is that Alaska sucks most of the time so people don't want to live there, so supply/demand sets minimum wages higher. That isn't something California or NY can really replicate.
So I can't really get behind the idea that income disparity can really be compared between states in a very meaningful way, and I definitely can't get behind the idea that inequality is something that blue states should necessarily seek to remove. I think it is far more complicated than that. An economy can still do well for it's lowest earners while being inequal and vice versa. I don't think California should necessarily seek to equality-max, because I feel the quickest way to do that would be to fundamentally restructure its economy in a way which kills high income jobs (by design). What it should seek to do imo is leverage those high income earners to make life better for low income earners.
