Unemployment soars in work-for-less South

The economy has been going south for years in a figurative sense. Now unemployment is going south literally, as ol' Dixie has become the locus of America's job losses.

The South - especially Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas - now posts some of the worst unemployment numbers in America.

Howard Dean was once reported to have asked, "How's the GOP working out for you?" A more specific question here might be: How's work-for-less laws working out for you?

The South has some of the nation's most stringent laws to put down workers. If you don't count Kentucky and West Virginia as part of the South, every Southern state has an oppressive so-called "right-to-work" law that intentionally weakens organized labor and forces unionized workers to subsidize nonunion workplaces.

Wait a minute! Weren't work-for-less laws supposed to spur economic growth by creating a "business-friendly" climate for employers? This story sure puts the kibosh on that trite argument, huh?

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE57344D20090804)