The South's Talent-Development Problem

Besides making the region unwelcoming to gays and minorities, the "godly folk" in the Bible Belt/American South also hate paying taxes and spending money on public education. It's part of the reason region lags behind other parts of America in talent development and upward social mobility.  A piece in The Economist - once again leave it to the European media to provide such good coverage - looks at the penny wise pound foolishness of the states in the South where among far too many embracing ignorance and bigotry are celebrated.  Here are some article excerpts:

[G]etting a good job in the South is tough if you’re young. A new report from MDC, a non-profit based in Durham, says that more than 30% of those under 25 in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and North Carolina are “underemployed”: they are either looking for a job, settling for part-time work or giving up on the search entirely.

Why are young people having such a tough time in the labour market? Part of the problem is competition. Many Southern cities, with their low cost of living, cheap property prices and good weather, attract graduates from across America, and there aren’t enough jobs to employ them all.

Newcomers clash over the available jobs, and residents with inferior credentials are easily displaced. Those who fail to become knowledge workers often end up shunted into the growing service sector, doing the kind of jobs (serve coffee, fix up houses) that techie types are too busy to do for themselves. “Talent recruitment is not balanced against talent development in the South,” says David Dodson, president of MDC. “It’s almost like a colonial economy, because the benefits accrue to those that come from someplace else.”

The South certainly has a talent-development problem. Poor education standards are a big part of it. The numbers bear this out. In an average group of 100 14-15 year-old Americans, 27 of them will not finish high school on time, according to the MDC study; this number goes up to 40 in South Carolina, 39 in Mississippi and 37 in Georgia. The problem is made worse by recent drops in education funding. Between fiscal years 2008 and 2014 state spending per pupil, adjusted for inflation, decreased in Alabama by $1,242—more than anywhere else in America. In Georgia it dropped by $707 and in Mississippi by $648. In fact, such spending declined in every Southern state apart from Tennessee. During this time spending actually increased in 12 other non-Southern states.

So it is unsurprising that Southern cities are among the worst in the nation when it comes to social mobility and inequality. . . . A study by the Equality of Opportunity Project last year says a child born into an Atlanta family with income in the bottom fifth percentile has just a 4.5% chance of making it to the top percentile; in San Francisco the chance is 12.2%. 

All of this makes life tough for young people in the South. Even for college graduates, finding good jobs is no piece of cake.

Living in the past and thumping on one's Bible constantly does little to prepare one's children and grandchildren for the future.