U-Haul Index Shows Americans Voting With Feet in Favor of Lower Taxes, Greater Worker Freedom

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(Americans for Tax Reform) – U-Haul released its annual growth index on January 2nd and the rankings further demonstrate how Americans are voting with their feet in favor of lower tax states.

The ten best performing states in the new U-Haul index, which are the states that netted the most one way movers last year, all have significantly lower income tax rates than the index’s ten worst performing states:

Average Top State Income Tax Rate for U-Haul Top 10 – 2.6%

Average Top State Income Tax Rate for U-Haul Bottom 10 – 7.3%

The overall state and local tax burden was also much lower on average in the top ten U-Haul index states compared to the bottom ten:

Average State & Local Tax Burden for U-Haul Top 10 – 9.6%

Average State & Local Tax Burden for U-Haul Bottom 10 – 12.2%

Aside from lower average income tax rates and lower overall tax burdens, the U-Haul index also illustrates how the states attracting the most new residents tend to be those that protect a worker’s freedom to decide for themselves whether or not to join a union.

Among the top ten performing states on the U-Haul index, nine of them have a right-to-work law that prevents workers from being forced to join and pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. Among the bottom ten states on the U-Haul index, only one of them has a right-to-work law.

“Growth rankings are configured by each state’s net gain (or loss) of customers utilizing one-way U-Haul equipment in a calendar year,” the company noted in a statement, adding that while “rankings may not correlate directly to population or economic growth, the U-Haul Growth Index is an effective gauge of how well states and cities are attracting and maintaining residents.”

The U-Haul index, as with the Census Bureau’s interstate migration data, further demonstrates how the states doing the best job of attracting new residents tend to be those that siphon away a smaller share of household earnings in the form of taxes and protect worker freedom.

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