How the south is kept out of shared prosperity

Economic Policy Institute -  Key findings:

• Many states across the South use an economic development model that prioritizes the wealthy and corporations at the expense of workers and their families and fosters precarity to maintain racial and class-based hierarchies.

• Southern families face high rates of economic insecurity, and underinvestment in health, child care, and transportation infrastructure blocks working families from full participation in the economy.

• Southern states have some of the weakest wage theft and paid sick leave laws in the country and are less likely than other states to enforce laws that do exist to protect workers.

• The racist attitudes that inspired discriminatory social welfare programs 90 years ago persist today. These dynamics are especially acute in the South, where the programs are less generous and reach fewer eligible families.

• Many Southern lawmakers have repeatedly rejected efforts to expand Medicaid in their states, which has led to thousands of premature deaths and other health and economic consequences. And Southern states account for six of the 10 states nationwide with the highest uninsured rates.

• In 11 Southern states, the poorest 20% of residents pay more in sales taxes alone than the top 1% of residents pay in all state and local taxes combined. 

• High poverty rates, regressive tax structures, and a failure to tax corporate income means that Southern states collect much less revenue than other states and are highly dependent on the federal government.

• In recent years, Southern states have given away billions of dollars in public revenue in the form of direct subsidies and tax breaks to corporations for projects that often do not benefit communities.