Arizona Daily Independent
Most people would probably say that with its purportedly higher incomes and higher minimum wage, California is a more prosperous state than, say, Mississippi. But as a new paper out today from the Goldwater Institute explains, our understanding of which states truly have the rosiest financial picture is greatly skewed—since the federal government’s analysis of states’ relative prosperity doesn’t take their costs of living into account.
In The Importance of the Cost of Living and Policies to Address It, Byron Schlomach, director of the Oklahoma-based 1889 Institute, illustrates how burdensome government regulations are among the largest—and most overlooked—contributors to the high cost of living, using an econometric analysis that does not depend on pre-packaged models.
