Should-Read: Binyamin Applebaum:

Should-Read: Alabama has a per capita personal income level 78% of the U.S. Since 1993, Alabama has not been catching up but rather has been falling further behind:

And it is not because people have been flooding into Alabama for the jobs. 4% job growth in Alabama since 2000 compared to 10% for the country, 17% job growth in Alabama since 1993 compared to 33% for the country:

A correspondent draws my attention to Binyamin Applebaum in the New York Times, and his story in which none of this context can be found.

Instead, what we have is:

Binyamin Applebaum: A Look Inside Airbus’s Epic Assembly Line https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/magazine/a-look-inside-airbuss-epic-assembly-line.html: “A confluence of political and economic forces has prompted Europe’s largest airplane manufacturer to place a factory in Alabama…

…and to create one of the world’s most gargantuan supply chains…. The state’s industrial revolution began in 1993 when a new governor, Jim Folsom, outbid other states for the Mercedes-Benz plant. (To land the deal, Folsom also agreed to remove a Confederate battle flag from the state capitol.) Airbus, the most recent arrival, got $158.5 million in state and local benefits, including a school at Brookley where the state trains potential Airbus employees at public expense…

Isn’t it unprofessional to talk about Alabama’s “industrial revolution” without any references at all to the disappointing growth record since 1993—and the disappointing level in 1993 and today as well? Yet in terms of professionalism Binyamin Applebaum stands head-and-shoulders above the typical New York Times reporter these days.

The story closes: “‘American workers expect things to go wrong and then they fix it’, said Freddie Guinness, 25, who moved to Mobile from Ireland to manage the new facility. ‘We want it to go right the first time'”. Does that apply to workers at the New York Times too? Or will they just not bother fixing this?