The Department of Revenue’s 2017 Annual Report includes this map showing that South Dakota has the lowest tax burden in the septa-state region:
Yet last year in quarter 3, our low personal income growth was indiscernible from that in surrounding states:
I have a hard time figuring out how anyone grows up in South Dakota and clings to the belief that lowering taxes leads to greater economic growth.
Cory, I’m going to have to disagree with your characterization that SD’s income growth was “indiscernible” from its neighbors. It looks quite discernible. It is clear that SD’s income growth was the lowest of all our neighboring states and, in fact, is the lowest in the nation.
SD is the land of the lowest taxes and the land of the lowest income growth. According to Republican economic dogma, how can that be?
Instead of pointing to Kansas as the poster child for the failure of tax cuts for the wealthy to spur economic growth, many people will see SD in that role.
Worse still is the fact that our relatively low taxes are structurally regressive. This means that the benefits of low taxes are skewed toward the wealthy of our state. It would be interesting to see if the wage growth, lacking as it is in SD, has been skewed toward the wealthy. For instance, if the average wage growth is .1%, what did high wage earners experience for wage growth compared to low wage earners?
Agreed, Mr. Larson. Cory, our surrounding neighbors saw growth outpace SD’s by factors of 3 to 7 times. The raw numbers are small, as they should be for a single quarter, but the differential is hugely discernible. This is about as ugly a comparison as I’ve seen–even Wyoming was 4 times greater.
Low tax burden equals low investment in education, health, infrastructure, advancing our well-being and future.
Gee whiz, guys, I was trying to go easy on the Governor… ;-)
The good news is that this should mean the legislatures get the lowest raises of any others and the mainstream media will write articles about it and do little TV articles too.
When I received INC. magazine thirty years ago they would list the 500 fastest growing companies every year. South Dakota, Mississippi and Alabama always had the lowest taxes and routinely were in the bottom five as far as having fast growing companies.
And Roger, INC. magazine never moved to South Dakota, did it?