Where Is The Best State To Work

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Corporations are not afraid to pick up and move. Many states offer companies enticing incentives like lower taxes, but a superior business climate doesn’t always mean a superior working climate. Some of the states with the most attractive offers have passed controversial social policies such as abortion restrictions and preventing schools and employers from holding diversity trainings. Watch the video above to learn more about the debate surrounding states with the worst workers protections.

Anti-poverty organization Oxfam America’s annual Best States to Work Index analyzes which states have the best policies to protect workers.

Oxfam America ranked North Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina as the worst states for workers in 2021.

“Every year, the worst states to work are in the South, almost always. And in 2021, that was no different,” said Kaitlyn Henderson, senior researcher at Oxfam America. 

A partisan divide has formed around labor policies. Democrats are more likely to pass the sorts of policies that Oxfam America tracks in its best states to work list such as higher minimum wages, pregnancy accommodations in the workplace and policies that protect the right to unionize.

But the states with the best policies for workers, according to Oxfam America’s analysis, also tend to be the states with the highest cost of living.

Oxfam America ranked Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and California as some of the best states for workers’ rights, but CNBC’s 2022 Top States for Business Index found those states also have some of the highest cost of living in the country.

“There are a number of things that workers are looking for when they think about considering different employment opportunities and that companies have to consider when they’re recruiting talent for jobs,” said Rachel Lipson, director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University. “We’re still in a very tight labor market where workers still have a lot of power and the ability to be picky.”

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:35 Worst states for workers
5:23 What workers consider
7:10 Attracting top talent
9:40 Broader implications

Correction (Aug. 16, 2022): The animation at 5:35 uses an outdated version of Oxfam America’s Best States for Workers list. Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and California are some of the best states for worker’s rights according to Oxfam data from 2021.

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Where Is The Best State To Work

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33 COMMENTS

  1. I love how the black chick blatantly says “I wanna be around people that look like me… I’m black first and I want to be around my community”

    As much as I can empathize with her, such words only serve to further divide us as a species. These same words from white race would be totally racist and “hateful” but from black people they’re okay apparently. The reality is that she loses so much social credit by acting like this. If I came upon her car wrecked on a deserted road and she was trapped inside I would think of her words and think maybe I should leave her until someone she prioritizes by race comes along…. There’s no winners in racism. One human family. That’s it..

  2. The employer-employee relationship is inherently opposing in terms of personal interest. Employers seek to maximize profits for themselves, but so do workers. This creates a tug-of-war between the two most prominent components of a workplace, all-too often resulting in the employers getting the upper hand and unfairly dictating the standard of living to the employees. When an employer tells a worker that it's not their responsibility to guarantee them a decent standard of living (i.e. a living wage and benefits), they're being totally transparent about their motivations and are openly telling workers that they are expendable; that their lives don't matter. The ripple effect this dynamic has is a combination of rising costs of living, as well as increasing social tensions that can eventually erupt in a destabilizing mass of civil unrest. Ownership of the means of production plays the most crucial role in determining which way that pendulum swings, which is why the US needs many many MANY MORE collective enterprises to not just give working people a viable option to have a better quality of life, but to keep the greed of the private employers in check through real competition. The tricks that employers will pull vary from bribing politicians, smear campaigns in the media, bullying and intimidation towards workers, or simply packing up and leaving for a location that will allow them to use and abuse workers at their leisure. There's no other way to see it: all these facts, in combination with the employers/owners running for office and being elected themselves, creates a systemic form of Fascism that relies less on political violence and more on passive-aggressive manipulation of the working class through round-the-clock propaganda and laws and institutions that are specifically set up to serve the Rich and Powerful. State Violence obviously plays a role in this system, but it's not nearly as obvious as it was in Italy under Mussolini, or in Germany under Hitler. But the underlying purpose for this economic-social arrangement is exactly the same: Ensure the growing profits of the Wealthy Elites by forcing the public to fork over their money against their will. This is just a long-winded way of saying Robbery. Capitalism is just that: Highly sophisticated, highly organized, state-sanctioned Robbery of the Wealthy Elites from the masses. If we want to really solve this problem to the fullest extent possible, we must do the unthinkable and move beyond Capitalism. This is definitely a tough pill to swallow because we've all be so thoroughly propagandized and indoctrinated into sycophantically supporting this intensely Authoritarian and oppressive socio-economic system; but time is running out, the world is drying up and burning, and all this is being done in the name of ever-increasing corporate profits. The Establishment is put in place to ensure that The System takes precedent over everything (and everyone) else. Systems are completely artificial. They can be changed to fit the needs of the people. We must find a way to abandon this religious worship of Capitalism and embrace a more open-ended approach to organizing and running society so we can all have the best future possible.

  3. Far more often good money is made by being ones own boss, starting a small-medium business. But due to the pandemic and other factors the small business sector was decimated and people lost the ability to earn a decent living. Stop everything for two years and prices will obviously go up due to covering costs and such. When big companies move in it usually means decent wages go away for people and "free market" capitalism does too where the smaller shops cant compete. Although I am in full support of women's right to do what they want with their life and their bodies, there is an interesting correlation between the fact that business benefits from an oversized work force which pushes wages down as well. This affects every gender and all races. Add to the fact that the US in general is going to soon be running into a population shortage due to the lack of young people having children to support the system of ever increasing "boomers" the system cant sustain itself unless it changes quickly or breaks. One benefit that I see coming out of the pandemic is the fact that many young/older people are seeing that work life balance is important and many are making changes to reflect this. Hopefully, the family life becomes more important than it has in the recent past.

  4. The southeastern states have always been the worst for workers. Grew up there lived in NC for 25 years left and move to WI in 2010 one of the best financial decisions I made in my life. Not all but most of the things that plague finding and maintaining a decent paying job in that region of the country still are there.

  5. Can you please just re-title the video to "What States You Should Work in as a Progressive/ Liberal"? I knew this video would have little factual basis the moment I saw the color-coded map. I live in northern New England, and I can say for sure that working in Vermont/ Maine completely blows compared to New Hampshire. However, NH is the slightly more conservative of the three, so of course it is ranked lower. In reality, NH is by a significant margin the best state to work for NNE. CNBC can never leave the biases at home unfortunately.

  6. Companies are charity cases , they choose location based on how much charity and welfare they will receive and of course where the labor is cheapest and where the people in government do what they want all the time. What a joke. Corruption on a national scale

  7. When they say where is the best state to work, they mean for businesses and not for workers lol.

    Basically, businesses are looking for the best state that has the lowest taxes, workers rights and so on, in other words, hell on earth for the workers and paradise for the businesses lol.

    Anyway, from a European perspective, it's clear that the US needs much stronger federal laws to protect workers rights, at the moment, they are too weak and it's leaving it open for states to decide that, that's actually bad because it puts a lot of pressure on those states to lower standards to attract businesses.

    I feel the EU does a much better job at that, where the EU has a high worker's right bar that members in the EU can't go below it but can have higher standards than it if they choose, the advantage of that is that it's not a race to the bottom and without that, the EU would be facing the same problems the US is facing with countries lowering standards to attract businesses, the high standards make it hard for businesses to avoid and being the EU is a big market, it's a market businesses can't afford to not be in, the US could do the same as it's a big market but the US is going to need much stronger policies from the federal government to get real change.

  8. The south is a great place to start a business and gain financially bc cost of living is low. BUT it’s a completely different story when it comes to living. GA is mainly black and white, hardly any Asians, Hispanics, or anything in between. Not much to do out there besides work.

  9. Seems strange that the red states are all red and all the blue states are all green. Does paying 16% state income tax in california sound like a good state where you might be able to earn a living? Or afford to live when the average home price is 3x the national average?

  10. It’s so frustrating that other countries can have actual protection for workers and have a decent life and in here is choose for a worker friendly state with a lot of taxes and high cost of living or a zero protection state with low taxes and affordable housing (which actually sucks )

  11. Thing is, worker’s rights don’t mean things are actually better for workers. Just that there more regulations, which can cut both ways. I.e. higher minimum wage often means a more money paid, but to fewer workers, and fewer opportunities for young people entering the workforce.

  12. That’s because the out of state workers coming to a new state bring along their politics that most if not all natives disagree on look at how Californians are perceived in Texas

  13. Ever since the beginning, women wanted to be like God. Their choice, their rules, their way. The thing is they don’t know everything like God. They can only see as far as their feelings. Just like you can feel like doing something in your 20s and regret it for the rest of your life.

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