No this isn't a story about the upcoming beatdown the Gamecocks are about to put on Big Blue.

It's about what happened yesterday in Michigan. The first line in today's Chicago Tribune story about this is Republicans slammed right-to-work legislation through the Michigan House and Senate Thursday. It sounds like some shady GOP deal designed to oppress the poor. In reality it allows the poor a better chance to rise in to the middle class.

No doubt there will be many who argue against that point. Citing statstics like "Right to work states have higher unemployment rates, and more poverty than those without that legislation". 

The first rebuttal to that argument is out of the Obama playbook. How much worse would it be if we didn't have that legislation? Ask the President about the Labor Participation Rate. Ask him why it dropped again today from 63.8% to 63.6%. That means 540,000 workers disappeared this month! We now have over 88 million people in America who are 16-62 not working. When you look at the graph from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it makes you sick to see the drop starting in 08. 

But when the President is asked about this he always always says "how much worse would it have been if I hadn't taken over and spent the record setting trillions of stimulus". So regarding unemployment being higher in right to work states, how much worse would unemployment be without that legislation? I'll actually have a good answer for you in a moment. 

But more importantly the right to work states have lower wages? True. Because everyone makes less in right to work states we pay less for everything. For example moving from Detroit to Columbia you would expect to pay about $42,000 less for a similar house. Gas is .40 a gallon cheaper. Groceries are cheaper, restaurants are cheaper, plumbers are cheaper so on and so forth. So you're quality of life is greater for less money.

When you look at the map of right to work states.

It looks very similar to the map of the fastest growing states.

Texas is on fire at over 2%. Utah, GA, NC, FL, AZ, even North and South Dakota are doing great, while IL staggers along, and people are actually leaving Michigan. Look at Indiana, almost like an island in liberal upper midwest, still attracting new citizens from Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. People are flocking to Indiana from those neighboring states, because they have jobs. Indiana has jobs because companies like to locate in right to work states. People hear about jobs and and they move to follow them. Thousands of people are moving every week to right to work states which creates a lag in the unemployment rate. So the unemployment rate looks better in the other states, and their salaries are higher....but they can't afford to buy as much with it, and their unemployed neighbors have finally abandoned them. Eventually the price for their houses will drop, because no one is moving there. Right to work states house prices will increase, because people are coming here. But the legislature in Michigan may have just saved a bunch of Michiganders a move. I think that's great. But ya'll come visit us some time for sweet tea, ya hear!