Press Conference - Jane Brady - 10-29-2020

of the state of Delaware under constant Democrat rule. And by a number of measures, Delaware is not growing and advancing, but is declining. One of the first measures that I put here is the per capita income. Per capita income is the average amount of income divided through the number of people who live in the state to get an average of how much people make. We have dropped from 15th to 21st with a boon in the middle. And that boon's going to be important in a few minutes because what it shows is that we did have an opportunity to have some increased economic success and we lost that opportunity. And so when you see that boon there where we went up to 5th in income per capita, that is an aberration. The next measure that I want to talk about is how our income per capita relates to our economic freedom measurements. So economic freedom is a measurement of the ability of business to do business without government interference. It doesn't mean no regulation. It doesn't mean no environmental protection. But what it does mean is that government is not interfering with the ability of companies to produce or provide their services and for employees to maximize their earning potential. And as you can see, our economic freedom is almost directly correlative with our per capita income. That is how much on average every person in Delaware makes. So if you look at what we need to do to improve income per capita and bring in higher paying jobs, we need to have better economic freedom. Now part of what is happening in Delaware, and the last slide, by the way, if you show any slide, please show that one. The part of what is happening in Delaware is that these conditions of declining economic freedom, declining income per capita, are reflected in a lot of other institutions. And education is one of those institutions. Here, these are figures from the Delaware Department of Education snapshot website. Here you can see that in English language arts, 52% of students were proficient last year in English in our schools in Delaware. 52%. In math, 42%, according to the Department of Education, were proficient in math. Now what does that mean? Well, it means that companies are not going to come to Delaware if they're not going to have people who are competent to work for them, can master the skills and the technology needed to be contributors to the business at hand. And so the education system is directly linked into the success economically in Delaware. Now part of what really matters in all of this is in New Castle County. In New Castle County, beginning in 1982, you see an exodus. This is a graph showing the net loss of wages due to commuting. These are people who work in Delaware but have chosen to live in mostly Pennsylvania, some Maryland, but people have chosen to live in Pennsylvania because of the school systems. A lack of confidence in our education system is driving people to buy their homes, buy their groceries, buy their cars in some place other than Delaware. And it's affecting the economy, and again, predominantly in New Castle County. Now as I said, if you get any chart at all, please get this one, because it reflects the impact of all of what I've talked about. And the impact has been job growth. Even before COVID, Delaware was projected for this year to have a 0% job growth. 0%. As you can see, in a time when people were paying attention to business and education and income per capita, and worried about bringing fair and equitable jobs and good paying jobs to Delaware, we were growing, maybe not as well as some other places that have Texas with new laws, but we have good corporate laws. We're undermining our ability to attract business. We're undermining our ability for our kids to stay in Delaware and work. Our kids are moving outside the state to find jobs. We need to keep it. They call it a brain drain. We are losing good people from Delaware because of the combination of government policy, our education system, and lack of creativity, imagination, and leadership in the legislature and the governor's mansion. What has happened with one party rule? We used to have a lot of discourse between the parties, and a collegial relationship in the General Assembly that would allow us to improve and advance Delaware's interests. What has happened with one party rule is that they stand around and talk to themselves, saying they all have good ideas, and we end up with a situation that's very undesirable. We are advocating that people should be aware of this before they vote. They should vote to balance the government in Delaware, bring Republican leadership back to some portion of the statewide offices, the General Assembly, and the governor's office. In Congress, this would make a difference. If we have Republican representatives in Congress, we may be able to get some manufacturing jobs. Last week, I talked about the Coastal Zone Act and the revisions to that act that would let us develop properties in the coastal zone that had previously been used for industrial purposes and have environmental contaminations that are going to be required to be cleaned up by the companies who locate there. We're letting that property sit dormant and contaminated because we're not exercising creativity, imagination, and leadership to help Delaware advance. Thank you.