ABSTRACT
In June 2013, Governor Perry went on a business recruitment trip to New York and Connecticut, touting Texas as a better climate in which to do business. The whole trip would have been laughable if there were not some sense in which the governor’s claims were plausible, if not simply true. Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the nation and New York is fifth, while Texas is well down the list at twenty-fifth. But the point that he was making is that Connecticut is a “high-wage” state; high wages after all is what it means to be wealthy. Texas is a “low-wage” state, which is attractive to business, assuming the quality of the workforce is acceptable.
