Minnesota teachers want protection against allegations that could threaten their entire career. And in the wake of the Janus decision, non-union teacher associations want educators to know they have options…
In terms of per capita incomes, what matters is productivity. Immigration will help boost per capita GDP to the extent that it boosts productivity. From an economic standpoint, we want…
A recent paper from the Federal Reserve shows that we can expect states with high corporate tax rates to perform poorly on entrepreneurship. Minnesota has high corporate tax rates and…
Minnesota’s unfunded public pension obligations are not a new problem. But reform is difficult when government unions turn a blind eye to shortchanged pension funds and oppose necessary steps to…
Minnesota beer retailers are taxed $0.15 per gallon and then an alcohol-specific sales tax of 9 percent.
Citypages writer Pete Kotz recently wrote an article claiming renewable energy is a free market success story, and that jobs in the renewable energy industry are "blowing up" despite "sabotage"…
Arvonne Fraser, who died recently at 92, contributed several essays over the years to American Experiment symposia that I compiled on a variety of subjects. She also was one of…
For most, the St. Croix is a scenic river. For others, it is an Iron Curtain or 38th Parallel, separating different economic systems. This is the position taken by the…
In 1970, Minnesota was among the states with the least income inequality. Black household median income was competitive with white households, and Hispanic incomes were nearly identical to white households. Since…
Bans on plastic have become all the rage. Minneapolis wanted to ban plastic bags last year, and cities on the Left Coast are banning plastic straws. Despite the inconvenience and…
If Farmer and Sue had been forced by the government to pay us the equivalent of $15 an hour, I think they would have hired older people, and avoided teenagers…
The Minneapolis School District can’t seem to get their act together. The district overspent by $21.6 million last year, now the school district is seeking to raise property taxes by…
A round-up of the last week’s economic news stories in Minnesota.
This cartoon sums up a fundamental truth that for some reason, lots of liberals seem unable to grasp. It should be posted in every high school and college classroom!
Socialism is not about sharing. In fact, it is about replacing sharing with government redistribution, which is not the same thing.
A new report by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota crows about the number of people employed in the renewable energy sector, but viewed with a different lens, the report actually demonstrates…
Public policy must deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. As in any profession, some teachers are better than others. We might…
The Star Tribune ran an interesting article today about how Able Energy Owner Mike Harvey has been accused of defrauding more than 80 would-be solar customers in Minnesota. There are…
A series of curious events over the last six weeks related to the Southwest Light Rail project and key personnel at the Met Council suggest disarray at the Twin Cities’…
Education Minnesota President Denise Specht uses her column in the union's publication, Minnesota Educator to call out the Center’s EducatedTeachersMN project and its electronic billboards that welcomed union officials and…
In late June, the American Enterprise Institute released a study by three scholars which found “more than one-in-two black men (57%) have made it into the middle class or higher…
Tensions over bike lanes have boiled over in Rochester, Minnesota where bikes and bike lanes have become a contentious issue in the City Council Elections. According to an MPR article,…
The full implications of the Janus case will not be known for many years. In the meantime, teachers and the legislators who represent them, should insist that the union adopt…
When politicians decree that labor costs will rise, businesses are incentivized to switch to capital inputs rather than labor. Who wins and who loses from this?