Back in 1970, Albert O. Hirschman penned a classic book on organizational behavior titled “Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States.” Hirschman described how, faced with participation in a bad organization, people have a choice to speak up or ship out. Loyalty plays a key role in how long they are willing to stick around.
Illinois has tested its citizens, and their loyalty appears to be running thin. The chart below is drawn with State Data Lab’s graphing tool. It shows the results of a Gallup poll last year that was designed to appraise citizen trust in state government. Illinois ranked the lowest state in the nation on this score, and the chart shows Illinois’s results compared to neighboring states in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
In Hirschman’s thesis, exit is more likely with reduced loyalty. The following chart looks at the same five states and outmigration in 2014. Illinois has easily the worst results, among some of the worst in the nation.
The 50 states are sometimes called “laboratories of democracy.” In Illinois, a good number of lab rats are escaping.