For centuries, philosophers from Socrates and Augustine to John Rawls have requested, “What is the good life?”
Now, CNBC has come up with the reply: Apparently, it’s abortion, childcare, and voting with out picture identification.
Who knew human flourishing aligned so completely with Democratic Party priorities?
CNBC’s pronouncement on what constitutes a good life comes as a part of its annual “America’s Top States for Business” rankings, which do embrace some completely cheap classes, akin to “Infrastructure,” “Cost of Doing Business,” and “Workforce.”
Then there may be CNBC’s “Quality of Life” class, which it determined to weigh much more closely this 12 months. According to veteran site-selection marketing consultant Tom Stringer, extra corporations in the post-COVID period are shifting to locations the place folks already wish to stay.
“You’re seeing corporate industry chasing people now rather than people chasing jobs,” Stringer informed CNBC.
Stringer could also be proper. Companies might certainly be following folks to the locations they wish to stay reasonably than anticipating staff to comply with jobs. But shouldn’t CNBC then have checked out the place precise individuals are shifting — and why?
That will not be what it did. Instead, CNBC assembled a laundry listing of Democratic Party cultural priorities and easily asserted that these are the causes folks choose some states over others.
Take Arkansas, which CNBC ranked as the Tenth-worst state through which to stay. Arkansas’s crime? It has “among the weakest protections against discrimination, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”
Fascinating. Does CNBC actually suppose folks seek the advice of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ anti-discrimination rankings earlier than deciding the place to maneuver? And why, precisely, are Arkansas’s anti-discrimination legal guidelines supposedly so insufficient?
According to the NCSL web site, Arkansas regulation protects in opposition to discrimination primarily based on race or shade, intercourse or gender, ancestry, and faith. Bluer states akin to New Jersey additionally shield marital standing, sexual orientation, and gender id. Apparently, CNBC thinks individuals are fleeing Arkansas for New Jersey as a result of Arkansas doesn’t drive bakers to rejoice same-sex weddings.
Oklahoma lands on CNBC’s listing of the worst states through which to stay as a result of it has a low minimal wage; Alabama, as a result of it’s a right-to-work state; Utah, as a result of it has comparatively few institutional childcare choices; and Tennessee, due to a “bathroom law” requiring transgender folks to make use of services designated for his or her intercourse at delivery.
Again, what number of families are leaving Tennessee as a result of it doesn’t allow males to make use of girls’s loos?
Almost none. In reality, opposite to CNBC’s rating, Tennessee is one among the fastest-growing states in the nation, with way more folks shifting in every year than shifting out. Compare that with New Jersey, which CNBC ranks as the fourth-best state through which to stay. New Jersey loses hundreds of residents yearly to crimson states akin to Tennessee and Florida, which, in accordance with CNBC, are horrible locations to stay.
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CNBC can hold defining the good life in accordance with blue-state priorities. Americans are rating the states themselves, with shifting vans. By that measure, Tennessee, Texas, and Oklahoma are profitable, whereas New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and California are dropping.
The woke editors at CNBC might rank the states, however Americans are deciding the place life is definitely higher.