Few jurisdictions do more than Colorado to “protect” employees from employers. The overregulation of employer-employee relationships is costing jobs and future employment for people in desperation.

When the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics this week revised employment numbers for the first quarter of 2024, it showed a downward revision of 818,000 fewer jobs nationwide than anticipated in the preliminary report.

Colorado, far and away, led other states in causing the downward revision. The revised report shows Colorado added 72,700 fewer jobs than were first reported.

That number of ghost jobs exceeds one for every man, woman and child living in Grand Junction — the largest city on the Western Slope.

Colorado ranks as the 21st-largest state in population, with 5.9 million residents. California, by contrast, has 39 million residents. Texas has 30 million, and Florida 22 million.

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Despite our relatively small footprint, no other state comes close to matching our 72,700 negative jobs revision. The next closest state, Missouri — with a million more residents than Colorado — saw a revision of 54,200 fewer jobs.

Thursday, the day The Gazette reported the sad new numbers, the editorial board received a presser from the left-wing organization Oxfam — which claims to fight poverty, injustice and inequality.

Oxfam marketers were eager to tell us that Colorado ranks eighth among the “best” states in which to work.

“This year, the District of Columbia earned the top spot in the index as the ‘best’ state for workers, followed closely by California (#2), Oregon (#3), New York (#4), and Washington (#5),” the email declares.

Oxfam chose Colorado and other “winning” states on a basis of “27 policies across three dimensions — wages, worker protections, and rights to organize — that seek to capture which states have stepped in to fill the gaps left by federal inaction to support low-wage workers and working families.”

Given Colorado’s seemingly limitless desire to regulate employment — high minimum wage, generous family leave for almost any reason, new options to sue employers, etc. — it is no surprise to see Colorado rank so high in Oxfam’s view.

Here’s what Oxfam doesn’t say. The list of “best” states could almost double as a ranking of places with the most people enduring unemployment — people who earn no wages.

While Washington, D.C., tops the “best” places to work, it also tops all states and territories in unemployment, with a rate of 5.5%. California, the second-best place to work, has the country’s fourth-highest unemployment rate at 5.2%. Oregon, the third-best place to work, ranks 15th-worst for unemployment. New York ranks 12th-worst, Washington state ranks fifth-worst and Colorado ranks among the worst 20.

The lowest ranking states on the Oxfam list of wage policies, worker protections and rights to organize have some of the country’s highest employment rates. Colorado has higher unemployment than Oxfam’s 10 “worst” states, except for Texas which tops the country in foreign and domestic workforce migration and has no net emigration.

If establishing “best” places to work helps society, then stop at nothing. Don’t set minimum wages at $14.42. Raise the lowest wages to $50, $100 or more and become the best state in which to work! As for the jobs this will kill, no big political downside. That’s because, aside from those who read jobs reports, few pay attention to work that disappears or fails to materialize.

As seen in Colorado, excessive workforce regulation kills jobs. Our trajectory — 72,700 fewer than wished for — says it all. Suffocating regulations help a fortunate few, while causing hell for those who need work and cannot find it.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board