A Good Place to Visit, but Hard to "Make It" Living There on Service-Industry Wages

 Florida is at the bottom of state rankings for healthcare, school funding and long-term elder care; it’s where teachers’ salaries are among the lowest in the nation, as are unemployment benefits, and where efforts to raise the low minimum wage drew the governor’s active opposition.

Then there’s the state’s regressive tax structure, which makes it clear why the rich are flocking his way.

“Florida is the ideal haven for privileged Americans who don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes,” Kleinknecht wrote, with no income tax for individuals and a rock-bottom corporate tax rate. With the tax burden in Florida falling disproportionately on the poor and middle class (because the state’s tax revenue comes mostly from sales and excise taxes), the state ranks worse than comparable northern states in diabetes, cancer deaths, teen birth rates and infant mortality.

What this means is that beneath the flashy distraction of the governor’s endless and often cruel culture wars is an appalling reality of policies that fail to serve the vast majority of Florida’s citizens: the non-rich.

As Florida goes, so goes the nation? If Americans elect Ron DeSantis – and let’s face it, stranger things have happened – we might be unlucky enough to find out.

• Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture