(The Sentinel) — Kansas Policy Institute’s 2026 “Green Book” shows the Sunflower State continually becoming less competitive by spending and taxing too much.

Indeed, as the Green Book notes, between 1998 and 2025, data from the  Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Kansas ranks 41st in total private sector jobs created. Kansas would have 162,000 more people working in the private sector if job growth just kept up with the national average. KPI owns The Sentinel.

In a recent article KPI Senior Fellow Vance Ginn said the state is “becoming too expensive, too fragmented, and too average to compete, while other states pull ahead.”

As noted, Kansas ranks 41st in private-sector job growth at 11.9% increase, 37th in private-sector wage growth at 160%, and 32nd in GDP growth at 201%. Since 2000, Kansas ranks 39th in domestic migration at -7%.

“Meanwhile, competitor states like Texas and Tennessee are consistently near the top,” Ginn wrote. “Texas ranks 4th in job growth at 63.5% and 3rd in GDP growth at 338%, while Tennessee ranks 9th in migration at 11%. These aren’t random differences. They reflect different policy choices.”

Ginn notes that Kansas has a taxing and spending problem: it collects about $6,597 per resident in state and local taxes, ranking 27th nationally, and spends $5,584 per resident from state funds, ranking 23rd. The Green Book shows Kansas spends 55% more per resident than the ten states with the most competitive state tax ranking published by the Tax Foundation. The data clearly shows that the states that spend more efficiently can tax less and grow more.

“That is not a low-tax, lean-government model,” Ginn said. “It is a middle-of-the-pack approach with below-average results.”

He said the 50-state Green Book publication shows tax structure in the Sunflower State is part of the problem.

“The tax structure helps explain the exodus,” Ginn wrote. “Kansas ranks 26th on corporate taxes, 28th on individual income taxes, 21st on sales taxes, and 26th on property taxes, based on the Tax Foundation’s state tax rankings. It’s one strong component, unemployment insurance taxes, does nothing to attract workers or businesses. Every category that drives investment and growth sits in the bottom half.

“The individual income tax is the clearest self-inflicted wound. A 28th-place ranking means Kansas is still penalizing work, savings, and entrepreneurship more than it should in an economy where people and businesses can relocate freely.”

Green Book data underscores a property tax crisis

Property taxes are another issue, Ginn said.

“Property taxes are where Kansans feel it most. And this is not just a mill rate issue — it is a structural problem,” he wrote. “The report shows 40 of 105 counties saw property tax collections more than triple between 1997 and 2025, even while some populations declined. That is not growth. That is a system where the government keeps expanding regardless of demand.”

Indeed, Kansas ranks 49th in local government employees per capita and 42nd in state government employees. Every excess government employee causes taxpayers to pay higher property, income, and sales taxes.

“In some counties, the report shows that government jobs account for more than a third, and sometimes more than half, of total employment,” Ginn wrote. “That is not a private-sector growth strategy. That is a sign the public sector has crowded out productive activity.”

Moreover, residents are voting with their feet for lower taxes and government spending.

Kansas had a net loss of $361 million in adjusted gross income in 2023 from U.S. residents moving in and out of the state, and the loss over the last 30 years is almost $8 billion, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service.

Decades of domestic migration losses and economic stagnation indicate that a change in strategy is needed.

According to Ginn, the first place where change is required is in government.

“Kansas needs fewer layers of government, not more,” Ginn wrote. “This requires spending that grows more slowly than the average taxpayer’s ability to pay for it. Property tax relief comes from controlling spending, not shifting burdens around. And there is a need for a tax system that rewards work and investment instead of penalizing them.

“Kansas is not failing overnight. It is falling behind year by year, ranking by ranking, decision by decision. In a world where people and businesses can move, that kind of slow drift is exactly how states lose.”

Printed copies of the Green Book are in the mail to KPI donors, and the organization makes complimentary copies available upon request.