(Originally posted October 27, 2023)
Under Republican rule in Indiana for over a decade the economic circumstances (and education, good paying jobs etc.) have worsened for Hoosier workers and their families.. The Republican "business model" is a disaster for workers.
"From 2017 through 2022, the Indiana economy grew more slowly than the nation as a whole. In inflation-adjusted terms, the Hoosier economy expanded by 10.8%, While the nation as a whole grew by 11.3%.
...the dismal growth of 2017 through 2020 accounts for all the lagging performance of the Hoosier economy. The expansion from 2009 to 2019 was the worst relative performance of our economy in state history. By 2019, the Indiana economy was slipping into recession due primarily to the tariffs put in place by the Trump administration. "What the new GDP data tells us about the Hoosier economy", Michael Hicks Muncie Star Press, reprinted in the Journal and Courier, January 8, 2024)
And I mused in December 23, 2023:
"I am beginning to see tax abatements, huge job promising government funded projects, military contracts, the privatization of education from K through college, real estate speculation, and more as a substantial cause of the movement of wealth from the 99 percent to the top one percent. And we see in Indiana that 39 percent of households live below a livable wage, healthcare is scarcer and more expensive, there are pockets of food deserts, and across the state growing environmental degradation.it is time to say enough is enough."
And today Hoosier politicians and corporate/university elites suggest that the Indiana economy is booming and will only improve with less taxes, more support for industrial projects like LEAP, and a general reliance on the "free market."
Recent United Way ALICE reports suggest to the contrary that economic circumstances of large percentages of Hoosiers have worsened over the last decade. For example, a recent United Way Alice Report suggests that the number of households in Indiana living below a livable income (about 37 percent) have increased since the last decade.
