Maybe the Best Way to Help Left Behind Regions Is to Stop Having Policies that Give All the Money to Rich Regions

In the wake of Amazon's decision to locate its new headquarters in two prosperous metro areas, a NYT Upshot piece by Neil Irwin raised the question of what can be done to help the regions that have been left behind. He then turns to various policy proposals intended to help workers in the areas that are not doing well in the current economy.

An alternative approach is to stop pursuing policies that transfer money from the left behind regions to the rich ones. The top of this list would be pat...