The Truth About Texas

Whew, since the Governor of the economically strongest state in the nation (that's Texas, folks,) announced his candidacy for President, the big government guys have been trying to deconstruct the Lone Star success story.  Happily, Kevin Williamson of National Review has a great rebuttal to Paul Krugman's false claims about employment and wages in Texas. 

Houston, like Brooklyn and Boston, is a mixed bag: wealthy enclaves, immigrant communities rich and poor, students, government workers — your usual big urban confluence. In Harris County, the median household income is $50,577. In Brooklyn, it is $42,932, and in Suffolk County (which includes Boston and some nearby communities) it was $53,751. So, Boston has a median household income about 6 percent higher than Houston’s, while Brooklyn’s is about 15 percent lower than Houston’s.

Brooklyn is not the poorest part of New York, by a long shot (the Bronx is), and, looking at those income numbers above, you may think of something Professor Krugman mentions but does not really take properly into account: New York and Boston have a significantly higher cost of living than does Houston, or the rest of Texas. Even though Houston has a higher median income than does Brooklyn, and nearly equals that of Boston, comparing money wages does not tell us anything like the whole story: $50,000 a year in Houston is a very different thing from $50,000 a year in Boston or Brooklyn.

Read the rest of Williamson's article here.  (Link should work now-sorry 'bout that.)