Nikki Haley’s South Carolina Proves to Have Been Disastrous According to Data
Nikki Haley has made her record as governor of South Carolina central to her presidential campaign.
Here’s how she presents it on her campaign site under a section called “Record of Results.”
“Nikki cut taxes, nixed burdensome government regulations, and made small businesses a state priority,” reads NikkiHaley.com. “At the end of Governor Haley’s tenure, more South Carolinians were working than at any other time in history, and South Carolina was outperforming the national average.”
The Haley campaign goes so far as saying: “During Governor Haley’s tenure, South Carolina was a national economic leader.”
That’s a big claim. It deserves inspection, and it’s worth asking: At the end of Nikki Haley’s six-year tenure running the state, how did South Carolina stack up to the rest of the country? Was her state a “national economic leader?” Most importantly, would America want to look like Nikki Haley’s South Carolina?
Here’s how South Carolina compared to the nation in her last full year — 2016 — as the state’s chief executive.
Haley is really proud of her record on employment. Well, how’d she do?
In 2016, the unemployment rate wasn’t anything special. By definition. It was average. South Carolina’s unemployment rate that year was the same as the nation’s overall, 4.9%.
Let’s talk about wages.
In 2016, the average South Carolina worker made $3.55, or 14%, less per hour than the average American worker. In fact, in the six years she was governor, wages grew at a 16% slower rate in her South Carolina than the national average.
How did the average South Carolina family fare?
When Haley left office, South Carolina families earned 12%, or $6,300, less than most American households. The average American family made $55,800 in 2016, federal data show. South Carolina families made $49,500.
Nothing to be proud of there.
Haley touts her business cred all the time. Well, did capitalists flock to her pro-biz South Carolina?
When Haley left office, global business leaders almost completely ignored her state. South Carolina attracted a disproportionately small share of new foreign direct investment in 2016, per federal data. Though the state represents 1.5% of the national population, it only received 0.14% of the $373.4 billion invested throughout the U.S. that year. Her state was virtually a global business pariah. International investors only created 700 new jobs there in 2016, overwhelmingly preferring investing in neighboring Georgia and North Carolina, where they created 16,400 jobs and 11,500 jobs, respectively.
It wasn’t just global investors that ignored Nikki Haley’s state. International and American venture capitalists apparently shunned her state, completely.
When Haley left office, South Carolina entrepreneurs received so little venture capital investment that the National Venture Capital Association’s database literally has no record of a single dollar invested there in 2016. Meanwhile, other Southern states, like North Carolina and Tennessee, raised hundreds of millions of dollars that year.
Enough about money. Let’s talk about a subject near and dear to Haley’s heart — protecting life.
When Haley left office, South Carolina workplaces were deadlier than the average American workplace. Workers in Haley’s virulently anti-union South Carolina died on the job 22% more often than the average American worker in 2016, per federal data.
Haley likes to say she’s tough on crime — a no-nonsense law-and-order candidate. In her last year in office, South Carolina’s homicide rate was 39% higher than national average, per FBI data; South Carolina’s rape rate was 19% higher than national average; South Carolina’s burglary rate was 41% higher than national average; South Carolina’s motor vehicle theft rate was 18% higher than average.
Haley says she’s a big supporter of the 2nd Amendment. It shows.
When Haley left office, South Carolinians were 66% more likely to be shot dead with a gun than in 40 other states, per federal data.
In Haley’s conservative laboratory of winning, South Carolinians killed themselves 17% more often than the national average.
And what about the lives of mothers in Haley’s “pro-life” state? Within six weeks of giving birth, women died 20% more often in her South Carolina than the national average, per state and federal data.
Black mothers in Nikki Haley’s state died more than twice as often as white mothers.
By the end of her six-year reign, South Carolinians were dying, from all causes, at a faster rate than the nation overall. The age-adjusted death rate in South Carolina in 2016 was 13% higher than the U.S. average.
So would America really want to look like Nikki Haley’s South Carolina — where workers make less and die on the job more often, where entrepreneurs raise less ,or zero, capital, where cars get jacked more often, where homes are burglarized more often, where citizens are shot dead, kill themselves and are murdered more often, where women are raped and where mothers die more often?
Nikki Haley shouldn’t be running on her record. She should be running from it.