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Chicago, Connecticut Attempt to Woo Texans Leery of New Laws

Chicago, Connecticut Attempt to Woo Texans Leery of New Laws

A Northern state and city are eager to attract Texas businesses and workers who might be uncomfortable with some of the Lone Star state’s new laws.

With a full-page “Dear Texas” ad slated for Sunday’s Dallas Morning News, Chicago promoters appeal to anyone turned off by the state’s near-total ban on abortion and further restrictions to voting.

“We believe that the values of the city you are doing business in matters more than ever before,” Michael Fassnacht, chief executive officer of World Business Chicago, the city’s public-private economic development agency, said in an emailed statement Friday.

The same day, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont took to social media to welcome businesses to the Constitution state, lauding its workforce and saying that its family-friendly policies allow more women to work. While he didn’t explicitly call out Texas, Lamont’s comments left little to the imagination.

“We don’t have oil and natural gas, but we have one of the most productive, best trained, most innovative workforces in the world,” he said. 

Connecticut, which will have paid family leave starting next year, has a female labor-force participation rate of 77.4%, compared with Texas’s 69.5%.

Meanwhile, Salesforce.com Inc. said Friday it would help relocate Texas-based employees and their families if they had concerns about access to reproductive care, CNBC reported.

What may stand in the way of a mass exodus from Texas to either of these locations, though, is money. Both Connecticut and Illinois have state income taxes, resulting in a personal tax burden above 10%, as well as levies on corporate income. Texas has neither, and the personal tax burden is about 7.6%, according to the Tax Foundation.

Chicago, Connecticut Attempt to Woo Texans Leery of New Laws

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