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Sanford Overstates South Dakota Policy Efficacy, Worker Productivity

Arizona/South Dakota billionaire T. Denny Sanford is using $25 million of his usury-gotten fortune to keep South Dakota state government from coming up with more of its own money to address workforce development. How very nice.

I suppose it's impolite to pester an elderly benefactor about the literal content of statements made in a fit of boosterism. But permit me to look at a few words from the gift horse's mouth, uttered yesterday at the rollout of the new Build Dakota vo-tech scholarship plan:

"I'm proud of everything that South Dakota stands for," Sanford said. "Productivity, a great health system and South Dakota Works. And it works in a good way. Not only do people work harder and have a better work ethic, but the system works. We've got a system unequal to anything else I've seen. We've got to get the people here to do it."

..."Go forward, South Dakota; let's get it done," Sanford said. "I know you will because everything we do here works" [Jodi Schwan, "Sanford, State Pledge $50 Million for Workforce Needs," that Sioux Falls paper, 2014.12.17].

Everything we do here works... that statement makes it hard to explain why we need this scholarship program in the first place. What happened to the New South Dakotans program that was Governor Daugaard's first big swing at workforce recruitment? Oh yeah: it didn't work. And if everything we have here works, why do we have a teacher shortage? And a road-repair shortage?

But we South Dakotans still work harder than everyone else, right? We have a better work ethic, right?

  1. A Bureau of Labor Statistics report from 2010 says that in 2008, South Dakota ranked 47th for average weekly hours and 51st for average hourly earnings in private industry.
  2. From 1977 to 2000, 25 states had higher annual labor-productivity growth than South Dakota. Our labor-productivity growth improved from 2000 to 2004, thanks to our riding out the 2001 recession a little better than the rest of the country, but 13 states still beat us on that metric in that period.
  3. This is a crude figure, but if you divide our gross state product by our population in 2013, you find that South Dakota ranks 22nd for economic output per person (see full chart below). However hard they are working, folks in 21 other states are generating more wealth per person than South Dakotans. The only neighboring state producing less wealth per person is Montana, which ranks 42nd in GSP per capita.
  4. Working harder isn't exactly a sign of progress. How hard do you think Mr. Sanford is working right now? American workers put in more hours than their European counterparts but report less life satisfaction.

I suppose the state's official position should be that Denny Sanford can say the sky is blue and Elvis is President, as long as he keeps the money coming. Denny Sanford can build our hospitals and schools and workforce... but let's not let him fabricate our facts.

State 2013 GSP $ Millions Population (2013) GSP/pop GSP/pop rank
Alabama 180,727 4,833,722 $37,388.79 47
Alaska 51,542 735,132 $70,112.58 2
Arizona 261,924 6,626,624 $39,526.01 41
Arkansas 115,745 2,959,373 $39,111.33 43
California 2,050,693 38,332,521 $53,497.47 13
Colorado 273,721 5,268,367 $51,955.57 18
Connecticut 233,996 3,596,080 $65,069.74 5
Delaware 58,028 925,749 $62,682.22 7
District of Columbia 105,465 646,449 $163,145.12 1
Florida 750,511 19,552,860 $38,383.69 46
Georgia 424,606 9,992,167 $42,493.89 37
Hawaii 70,110 1,404,054 $49,933.98 20
Idaho 57,029 1,612,136 $35,374.81 50
Illinois 671,407 12,882,135 $52,119.23 17
Indiana 294,212 6,570,902 $44,774.98 31
Iowa 150,512 3,090,416 $48,702.83 21
Kansas 132,153 2,893,957 $45,665.16 28
Kentucky 170,667 4,395,295 $38,829.48 44
Louisiana 222,008 4,625,470 $47,996.85 24
Maine 51,163 1,328,302 $38,517.60 45
Maryland 322,234 5,928,814 $54,350.50 11
Massachusetts 420,748 6,692,824 $62,865.54 6
Michigan 408,218 9,895,622 $41,252.38 39
Minnesota 289,125 5,420,380 $53,340.36 14
Mississippi 96,979 2,991,207 $32,421.36 51
Missouri 258,135 6,044,171 $42,708.09 35
Montana 39,846 1,015,165 $39,250.76 42
Nebraska 98,250 1,868,516 $52,581.83 15
Nevada 123,903 2,790,136 $44,407.51 33
New Hampshire 64,118 1,323,459 $48,447.29 23
New Jersey 509,067 8,899,339 $57,202.79 9
New Mexico 84,310 2,085,287 $40,430.89 40
New York 1,226,619 19,651,127 $62,419.78 8
North Carolina 439,672 9,848,060 $44,645.54 32
North Dakota 49,772 723,393 $68,803.54 3
Ohio 526,196 11,570,808 $45,476.17 29
Oklahoma 164,303 3,850,568 $42,669.81 36
Oregon 211,241 3,930,065 $53,750.00 12
Pennsylvania 603,872 12,773,801 $47,274.26 26
Rhode Island 49,962 1,051,511 $47,514.48 25
South Carolina 172,176 4,774,839 $36,059.02 49
South Dakota 41,142 844,877 $48,695.85 22
Tennessee 269,602 6,495,978 $41,502.91 38
Texas 1,387,598 26,448,193 $52,464.76 16
Utah 131,017 2,900,872 $45,164.70 30
Vermont 27,723 626,630 $44,241.42 34
Virginia 426,423 8,260,405 $51,622.53 19
Washington 381,017 6,971,406 $54,654.25 10
West Virginia 68,541 1,854,304 $36,963.19 48
Wisconsin 264,126 5,742,713 $45,993.24 27
Wyoming 39,538 582,658 $67,857.99 4

15 Comments

  1. Nick Nemec 2014.12.18

    I reject your reality and insert my own.

  2. mike from iowa 2014.12.18

    How many times was this guy married?

  3. JeniW 2014.12.18

    MFI, why is the number of times Denny has been married important?

  4. 96Tears 2014.12.18

    I saw the Argus Sanford story and noticed that people have these strange grimaces on their faces, like they're experiencing severe constipation. Is this to honor Big T. Denny?

    Cory, your reporting on this thread is exactly what the Argus Sanford should toss back at their GOP Overlords to expose the real problem and demand to see their plan to pull South Dakota out of dead last for wage earners. The disgrace of having the lowest teacher pay is a small part of the whole picture. Filthy rich blowhards like T. Denny and Dana Dykehouse and their minions of political puppets are only looking for more hapless souls willing to move to South Dakota to be exploited by accepting the worst paychecks and workers' benefits in the United States.

  5. mike from iowa 2014.12.18

    Didn't Sanford say everything works in South Dakota? Apparently not his marriages.

  6. Mike B 2014.12.18

    As the parent of two teenagers, Sanford can invest all of the money he wants to in SD education and I will say "Thank You".

  7. leslie 2014.12.18
  8. Steve Sibson 2014.12.18

    Mike, so you don't have a problem with your teenagers being owned by corporatists?

  9. Mike B 2014.12.18

    I have a problem with students being forever in debt.

  10. tara volesky 2014.12.18

    A $25 million dollar gift for education is a cheap investment in exchange for Medicaid expansion.

  11. Bob Klein 2014.12.19

    I noticed that the public regurgitations of the comments made both at this event and at another event DD attended in Brookings contained glittering generalities containing no substance.

    In Brookings DD said something about how wonderful it was that the SDSU Innovation Campus was now "technology certified" while making no mention of the meaning of that phrase. Sounds like something they made up in an attempt to finally sell a building that's been empty since its construction. The taxpayers have paid for infrastructure, but there's no there there.

  12. JeniW 2014.12.19

    People are "owned" by whomever gives the paycheck, regardless of occupation.

  13. Steve Sibson 2014.12.19

    "Filthy rich blowhards like T. Denny and Dana Dykehouse and their minions of political puppets are only looking for more hapless souls willing to move to South Dakota to be exploited by accepting the worst paychecks and workers' benefits in the United States."

    There some discernment in that statement. This program, like most all government programs, are not about helping out the working class, but about subsidizing Big Business.

  14. JeniW 2014.12.19

    How are you going to stop it from happening?

Comments are closed.