OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma was among the 10 states with the poorest growth in gross domestic product in 2015-18, and has one of the highest “misery” indexes in the nation, a Creighton University professor announced recently.
Dr. Ernie Goss, an economics professor at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., said he combined “a widely accepted measure of income inequality,” the Gini Coefficient, and gross domestic product (GDP), to arrive at a “Misery” Index.
A state with high income inequality (high Gini Coefficients) and low GDP growth has a high Misery Index. “I then calculate state and local tax burdens to gauge whether higher taxes are likely to lead to a lower or higher Misery Index,” Goss wrote.
Oklahoma ranked 43rd on the overall Misery Index; Arkansas, 45, and New Mexico, 48. (New Mexico also was one of 10 states ranked with the highest income inequality in 2018.)
Oklahoma’s economic growth “misery” was ranked 46th (which is ironic, considering that Oklahoma was the 46th state admitted to the Union).
States with the highest Misery Index had the highest average per-capita state and local taxes and a worse business tax climate ranking than low Misery Index states, Goss said.
The Misery Index report was issued shortly before Goss released his monthly Mid-America Business Conditions index report, which contained another dismal forecast for the Sooner State.
“Based on recent surveys, I expect the Oklahoma economy, for the first half of 2020, to rank last” in a nine-state region “in terms of economic performance with overall annualized inflation-adjusted GDP growth at minus 0.2%,” Goss wrote.
Oklahoma’s overall Business Conditions index rose slightly in December, to 48.4, compared with 47.8 in November. Goss’s survey results are compiled into a collection of indices ranging from 0 to 100; survey organizers say any score above 50 suggests growth, while a score below that suggests decline.
The survey, which was released on Jan. 2, encompasses Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and Oklahoma.
The economy is growing slowly in those nine Midwest and Plains states as the U.S. trade war with China continues, Goss reported. Across the region, the Business Conditions index rebounded from
48.6 in November to 50.6 in December, the report said.
Weakness in the region’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors has extended into the broader regional economy. During the past 12 months, the region has added jobs at an annual pace of 0.7% – less than half of the 1.5% rate of the nation’s economy.
The business confidence index rose from 52.9 in November to 57.6 in December. “Potential January passage of the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement and Phase One of the trade agreement with China boosted the regional business confidence index for the month,” Goss explained.