Didnt know you were "a foreign poster". Do you just feel so alienated from US politics at the moment, that you decided to change your citizenship.
Texas is a part of the U.S. just like Tibet (and Taiwan) is part of China.
Be glad of it, because without Texas those masses of economic refugees from failed states like California, New York, and Illinois might be washing up on your shores.
Texas is a part of the US more like Manchuria is part of China, but whatever.
If California, New York, and Illinois are 'failed states' then Texas, which of course leads the nation in low-wage unskilled marginal labor, certainly is too.
As a lifelong Texan (though of Yankee parents), I can admit that, except for the company one gets to keep, no one would want to live in Texas. It has a fearsome climate and ugly scenery. Even the Mexicans didn't want to live here for the first 300-odd years they had it.
But one thing Texas also is: The --
THE -- refuge for America's hardworking and big-dreaming 99%ers.
Take a state -- um, sorry, a commonwealth, like Massachusetts. Between 2007 and 2009 (latest data available), Massachusetts had net migration of about 5,000 of its residents to Texas, California, and New Hampshire, about 6,000 to North Carolina, and about 8,000 to Florida. http://interactive.taxfoundation.org/migration/
But not all migrating Bay Staters carry the same cash. An analysis of tax returns (at the link cited above) shows that the average Mass migrant brought the following adjusted gross incomes to these leading destination states:
$95,143: Florida
$54,380: New Hampshire
$50,269: California
$39,664: North Carolina
$36,335: Texas
But as bad as it is that Massachusetts burdens Texas with its poor, it's hardly the worst offender. Here are the top 10 states supplying economic refugees to Texas, with the per capita AGI of each:
California, 70,000 refugees, $20K avg AGI
Florida, 40,000 refugees, $14K avg AGI
Michigan, 22,000 refugees, $26K avg AGI
Illinois, 22,000 refugees, $27K avg AGI
New York, 15,000 refugees, $30K avg AGI
Arizona, 14,000 refugees, $12K avg AGI
Ohio, 12,000 refugees, $32K avg AGI
New Jersey, 9,000 refugees, $36K avg AGI
Indiana, 8,000 refugees, $19K avg AGI
Missouri, 7,000 refugees, $29K avg AGI
So, for those of you who look down your noses at so many poor folks in Texas, we say,
"Stop driving so many of them to us -- we're tired of seeing those broken down cars with Yankee license plates under our bridges".I should look at Massachusetts
in-migration, just a minute ....
It looks like there are about 10 states that have more people moving to Massachusetts than vice-versa. Here are the top seven ....
Rhode Island, 4,000 refugees, $34K avg AGI
Connecticut, 3,100 refugees, $62K avg AGI
New York, 3,100 refugees, $86K avg AGI
New Jersey, 2,400 refugees, $60K avg AGI
Michigan, 1,700 refugees, $41K avg AGI
Ohio, 900 refugees, $54K avg AGI
Pennsylvania, 700 refugees, $105K avg AGI
(No other states above 400)
Hmmm, I see some overlap:
12,000 Ohio residents moving to Texas: $32K AGI per capita
900 Ohio residents moving to Mass.: $54K AGI per capita
9,000 New Jersey residents moving to Texas: $36K AGI per capita
2,400 New Jersey residents moving to Mass.: $60K AGI per capita
15,000 New York residents moving to Texas: $30K AGI per capita
3,100 New York residents moving to Mass.: $86K AGI per capita
22,000 Michigan residents moving to Texas: $26K AGI per capita
1,700 Michigan residents moving to Mass.: $41K AGI per capita
No wonder a recent economic study found that if Texas closed its borders for just two years, the unemployment rate would drop to 2.3%. Maybe we'd all be a lot richer then -- a lot more of those "high paying jobs", right?