| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #266 04/19/2021 |
| 1) Red States Still Rebounding Faster than Blue States The Hotline has reported for nearly a year now on the consistently superior record of red states than blue states on getting businesses and jobs back in their states. Here’s the latest evidence of that: – Unemployment rates are roughly two percentage points lower in the blue states. – The average growth for red states in the fourth quarter was 5.1 percent, more than a full point higher than the average of 3.7 percent for Democrat-run states. – Eight of the top 10 states for fastest economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2020 were led by Republican Governors according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. States with Fastest Economic Growth in Q4 of 2020:  On the other end of the spectrum, all bottom ten states (and DC) with the slowest growth in the 4th quarter of 2020 were led by Democrats:  Dem governors shut down their economies during the pandemic and their citizens continue to pay a high price for their grievous errors. We ask again: why is Biden trying to turn America into one big bloated blue state? |
| 2) Schools – Another Tale of Red and Blue The latest update from Burbio finds that this week: – % US K-12 students attending “virtual-only” schools = 9.4% (from 12.2% last week). Just 1.8% of districts are now virtual only, but they hold 9.4% of students. – % US K-12 students attending “traditional” in-person/every day schools = 62.4% (from 59.4%) – % US K-12 students attending “hybrid” schools = 28.2% (from 28.4%) Burbio also for the first time published a ranking of states based on a cumulative measure of how open their schools were throughout the school year, with hybrid counting as half weight and the cumulative score an average of each monthly score. We added the color-coding, with red indicating a Republican governor.  The partisan divide is even starker when you consider that the lone Democrat-led state in the top 20 is Louisiana – a very Republican state – and the two Republican-led states toward the bottom are usually-blue Maryland and Massachusetts. |
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