Category: Business Development and Incentives

As more people are able to work from – and live – anywhere, states and localities are increasingly offering incentives targeting remote workers. The move to remote and hybrid work in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend, with dozens of new programs emerging in the last two years. Will these worker attraction efforts be effective?

This roundtable will present findings from recent evaluations of two of the longest-standing remote worker attraction programs: the Vermont New Remote Workers Grant Program and Tulsa Remote, both launched in 2018. As early adopters of remote worker incentives, both places offer important lessons to communities that offer or are considering offering incentives to attract remote workers.

Moderator:
Ellen Harpel, Smart Incentives

Speakers:

Deanna Kimball, PFM Group Consulting
Joan Goldstein, Commissioner, Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development
Kenan Fikri, Economic Innovation Group

This SEDE event was open to a larger audience given staff interest in the issue.  The Recording and
slides used in the presentations are available online.  A white paper and blog summarizing the session are also available.

This white paper developed for the State Economic Development Executives (SEDE) Network describes state approaches and promising practices for rural economic development based on recent research findings and the collective wisdom of state economic development officials for improving and expanding rural
regions.

Read the white paper here.

State governments can undermine opportunities for investment and job creation when businesses spend too much time or money on inefficient regulatory processes, or when new business projects get delayed because firms don’t understand how to comply with the rules. To address this challenge, state policymakers can focus on two types of reforms. First, they can improve the efficiency of regulatory systems so businesses can comply with the rules in a less costly and time-consuming manner. Second, they can partner with businesses to increase compliance as well as economic opportunity. Together, these changes form a powerful economic development strategy by making it quicker and easier for entrepreneurs to launch a new business or bring an innovative product to market.

Policymakers often focus their efforts on trying to reduce or eliminate requirements. Increasingly, however, they are finding that business leaders are less interested in eliminating regulations outright and more interested in getting help navigating the regulatory process and receiving timely and predictable regulatory decisions. 

Read the full report here.