Kentucky was a perfect example of this. They gave the best corporate welfare money can buy. And everyone left. There were no decent roads, schools, police. So there were no decent workers. The companies were basically given the best deal in a place with no workers.
If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.
Its really hard to make a thoughtful reply to a thread like this without seeming like its just ivory tower dumping on red states. My feeling is that they've set up a basically every person for himself sort of society with (usually multinational or national) businesses as the primary benefactor rather than people.
If anything the workers left even more because there was even less attractiveness to be there.