I came across the following on my facebook today (names obscured to protect the, er, innocent?):
The problems with this are pretty obvious and typically I just ignore this kind of thing, but the whole idea of the hard working, virtuous southerner vs the lazy socialist northerner has always bugged me, and I see it often. I made this chart, comparing the economic output per employee of the three states in question here, defined here as state GDP / number of employees. Data is from FRED, GDP numbers are 2010, and employee numbers are December 1, 2010.
So can we stop with this now?
520 Chestnut 
As someone who lives in a typically conservative state, I see this often as well. Most people in these states are not aware of this type of difference and also aren’t aware most “red states” are welfare states that get more back in federal dollars than they give. These people would be appalled if they ever get what they are asking for in terms of federal spending and policy.