 <!– |
|
State Economic Development Bulletin
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Rethinking Industry Clusters with EDA American Rescue Plan Programs (Brookings). The way that many states and regions think about and define “target industry clusters” makes it almost impossible to act strategically. Few have set themselves up to deliver what the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) calls for in the Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant: “a purposeful approach to ambitious yet actionable economic transformation.” To help generate high-value returns, focus on the key traits of successful cluster initiatives: 1. establishing a robust ecosystem; 2. industry-driven, university-fueled, and government-funded; 3. placing a collective big bet on a unique opportunity; 4. passionate, dedicated leaders; and 5. anchored by a physical center. Considerations for equitable growth, climate change; urban-rural linkages; and the impacts of changing technologies are also at play. For a list of EDA American Rescue Plan Programs, click here.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
* Accelerator Webinar Opportunity *
With grant application deadlines quickly approaching, the Accelerator Series will help lead organizations and regional coalitions:
- Assess their region’s relative strengths and what is needed to drive equitable regional growth
- Catalyze outside of the box thinking and problem-solving to address specific planning challenges
- Workshop potential strategies, coalition building approaches, and project ideas.
Hosted by America Achieves, Equity Cities, HR&A Advisors, and McKinsey & Company, with support from CREC, CORI, and CivicLab, the series will be led by regional economic development experts who will advise on bottleneck issues and help teams move through the continuum of planning suitable to your regional context.
Good Jobs Challenge Accelerator Webinar
September 28th and September 30th
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET
RSVP Here
Who should participate: Regional teams, including lead entities, backbone organizations, and primary convenors who are seriously considering applying and/or who are planning to apply. Senior leaders and officials of applying regions are welcome if they want to learn more about the overall application. In addition, we recommend that people most responsible for developing and writing the application attend. Participants should be familiar with EDA’s Program Resources, including their FAQs and most recent technical assistance webinar.
|
* Take the SEDE Surveys *
Through the Statewide Planning, Research & Networks program, the U.S. EDA is supporting states in their planning efforts by allocating $59 million for Statewide Planning Grants. Likewise, through State Tourism Grants, U.S. EDA is providing $510 million in non-competitive awards to help states quickly invest in marketing, infrastructure, workforce, and other projects to rejuvenate safe leisure, business, and international travel. The SEDE Network is interested in better understanding the anticipated uses of these two grants by states to guide relevant programming that helps all states build back better.
Please take a moment to complete the surveys
(Approximate response time 3 minutes per survey)
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Responses are requested by Friday, October 1, 2021
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
State Economic Performance
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
U.S. Employment Projections 2020–2030 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Total U.S. employment is projected to grow from 153.5 million to 165.4 million over the 2020–2030 decade, an increase of 11.9 million jobs. This increase reflects an annual growth rate of 0.7 percent, which is higher than recent projections and accounts for recovery from low base-year employment for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated recession. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is projected to increase the fastest, largely driven by recovery growth, while the healthcare and social assistance sector is projected to add the most new jobs. Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to grow 2.3 percent annually from 2020 to 2030, with labor productivity projected to increase by 1.7 percent annually. Both figures are higher than the prior decade.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
* Economic Outlook *
America Counts Releases State Data Profiles
The U.S. Census Bureau, through its America Counts initiative, released individual data profiles for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, highlighting the recent 2020 Census Redistricting Data. The state profiles feature data visualizations that include population, housing, race, ethnicity, diversity, and age data. Each profile provides key demographic characteristics for the state and counties on one page. America Counts tells the stories behind the Census numbers on topics such as families, housing, employment, business, education, the economy, emergency management, health, population, income, and poverty.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Plastics Industry Prepares for Infrastructure Bill Windfall (Plastics Today). The plastics industry is poised to earn a share of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved by the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan vote. The bill is intended to rebuild the nation’s roads, bridges, and other crumbling infrastructure, and fund new climate-resilient projects as well as broadband initiatives. The Plastics Industry Association is a fan of the bipartisan bill which includes key provisions to enhance waste management and replace aging lead pipes with plastic pipes. The waste management provisions will enhance the nation’s recycling infrastructure. Additionally, several global entities recently announced new sustainable initiatives that have close ties to the building and construction and infrastructure sectors. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a global non-profit organization, and the Center for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC), a South Africa–based company, announced a partnership to scale up a system to convert hard-to-recycle plastic waste into a concrete additive used in building and construction applications. CRDC will develop a 14,000-square-foot production plant in York, Pennsylvania, to increase its capacity.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
U.S. – China Trade War May Reignite (Sydney Australia Morning Herald). The Biden administration is discussing an investigation of China’s subsidies of its industries and their impact on the U.S. economy, along with its compliance in promised buying of U.S. products. China continues to use direct and indirect subsidies to support its state-owned enterprises or sectors deemed of national strategic importance. Its priorities now include semi-conductors, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Additionally, under a deal which came into force last January, China committed to buying an extra $200 billion of U.S. products, relative to a 2017 baseline, in 2020 and 2021. It has been falling well short of the rate of purchases required by the deal, nearly 40 percent short of its commitments last year and about 30 percent behind this year. These issues may become a catalyst for another trade confrontation. In response, if President Biden can stitch together a coalition of key partners – the EU, UK, Japan, South Korea and, perhaps, India – it might not cause China to remake its economic model, but it would make its export markets more limited and expensive.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
The Opportunity Zone Marketplace In 2021 (Forbes). Investors taking advantage of the OZ incentive are generally high-income individuals: a first-of-its-kind academic study by researchers at UC Berkeley found that the average household income for QOF investors was $1,083,766, roughly ten times the national average household income. Returns-driven and tax-deferral-driven investors have almost exclusively targeted market-rate real estate, while impact investors have demonstrated greater flexibility in pursuing community benefit projects that also provide a return on investment. Rural communities that have successfully attracted OZ funding demonstrate consistent strategic practices: focusing on specific marquee projects, marshaling support from local community individuals with capital gains to deploy, creating a task force or community champion organization to lead the work, and developing thoughtful community brands. Several states have built active public and private sector ecosystems to facilitate OZ investments, including the Colorado Office of International Trade and Economic Development, West Virginia’s Opportunity Appalachia, Indiana’s Rural Opportunity Zone Initiative, and Opportunity Utah.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
The Opportunity Zones program provides a tax incentive for investors to re-invest their unrealized capital gains into Opportunity Funds that are dedicated to investing into Opportunity Zones designated by the chief executives of every U.S. state and territory. Treasury has certified more than 8,700 census tracts as Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZs) across all states, territories, and the District of Columbia. For a map of all designated QOZs, click here.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Community Colleges Drive Inclusive Economic Recovery (Urban Institute). As the pandemic changes the landscape of local economies, many workers will turn to community colleges to gain new skills or get credentialed in an entirely new field. Community colleges have always acted as a launchpad to a better life; before the pandemic, students at community colleges made up about 40 percent of the nation’s undergraduates, totaling 8.2 million across some 1,400 institutions. Community colleges are integral to local economies because they sit at the intersection of workforce development and higher education. And recent evidence shows them emerging as engines for workforce growth. In Florida, for example, Broward College’s Unlimited Potential (Broward UP) program is expanding access to its college courses. Broward UP provides free education and training at satellite sites in six zip codes with disproportionately high unemployment rates, low educational attainment, and low household incomes. The program also offers students wraparound services, such as case management and broadband access, by leveraging a network of community, government, and industry partners.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Entering a New Digital Era in Energy (McKinsey & Company). Energy companies are operating in uncertain times. They face societal pressure and increased regulation to significantly reduce fossil-fuel dependency. Under these conditions, companies are looking to maximize the health and resilience of downstream operations—particularly in oil and gas and chemicals—by adopting new automation and digital technologies. This will enable increased levels of data usage and performance transparency, as well as faster decision loops. All plants, irrespective of their maturity levels, are primed to identify and adopt digital technologies to move toward autonomy. To do so requires a carefully determined combination of conventional technologies, AI, ubiquitous data, connectivity, and collaboration when making operational decisions.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Infrastructure Bill Aims to Cool Urban Heat Islands (Christian Science Monitor). The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill contains a new “Healthy Streets” grant program to help communities fund initiatives to mitigate “urban heat islands,” where concrete-heavy city landscapes push up temperatures. The legislation allows states and local governments to apply for grants of up to $15 million to deploy “cool” and porous pavements, which reflect heat and facilitate water runoff, and boost the tree canopy in disadvantaged areas, among other measures. Specifically, the program in the infrastructure bill aims to promote equity by requiring applicants to specify how the projects will benefit disadvantaged and low-income communities, where at least 30% of residents live below the poverty line. The program builds on efforts that have been underway for some time in cities to reduce the effects of rising heat fueled by climate change. In California, new buildings must comply with strict “cool” or reflective roof requirements, while San Francisco demands that most set aside part of their roof space for solar panels or “green” features like vegetation and gardens – which can also help buildings in other cities meet energy efficiency standards.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Colorado Offers Four Companies Tax Incentives (Denver Post). The Colorado Economic Development Commission approved $11.3 million worth of job growth incentive tax credits to four companies that are considering the creation of 610 jobs over the next eight years in the state. The job growth incentive tax credits represent an offset against future state tax obligation based on the size of the new payroll taxes a company generates, up to the stated number of jobs. Companies have up to eight years to provide the jobs listed. The awards made average out to $18,457 in tax credits per job created. The largest of the awards, worth up to $7.7 million, went to a foreign maker of medical devices and health care technology products that was given the code name Project Tempus to protect its identity. The company is looking to set up a North American headquarters as well as a global headquarters for one of its subsidiaries. The company told the state that it is looking to create 300 jobs at an average annual wage of $154,957, double the average annual wage in Denver. The positions are in management, administration, marketing, and finance. The company is also looking at locations in Texas and New Jersey.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
California Tax Incentive’s Success Is in Its Failures (Bloomberg). Since launching the California Competes Tax Credit in 2014, the state has awarded $1.3 billion in credits to 1,121 companies that promised to expand their footprint in the state instead of going elsewhere. Businesses from craft breweries and garage door installers—and increasingly, corporate giants like Tesla Motors Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp.—have agreed to fulfill commitments within five years or forgo their credit awards. Companies can start claiming the credits on their state income tax returns as they meet their annual milestones for jobs and investments. If they breach their contracts, the awards are recaptured. About half of the awards from the program’s first two years and one-third from the third year have been recaptured. “From a taxpayer perspective, that’s working,” said Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, which oversees the credit. California Competes had a surge of applications in 2020. However, many came from companies not qualified for the program but grasping for help during the pandemic, according to program officials.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Kentucky Endorses Incentives for Mega Projects (AP News). Kentucky lawmakers advanced legislation that would tap into budget reserves to offer incentives potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars in hopes of landing mega-sized economic development projects. During a special session focused on COVID-19 issues, House and Senate panels endorsed bills to strengthen the Bluegrass State’s bargaining hand in competing against other states for massive business development projects. The $410 million economic development package — requested by Governor Beshear’s administration — would apply to projects topping $2 billion. The state is working on at least five big projects of that size. The Democratic governor picked up solid support from Republican lawmakers to sweeten the state’s offer in trying to land the mega-sized projects. “These are the kinds of big ideas and projects and prospects that we should be supporting in a bipartisan manner,” said Republican Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
The State Business Incentives Database is a national database maintained by the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) with almost 2,000 programs listed and described from all U.S. states and territories. The Database gives economic developers, business development finance professionals, and economic researchers a one-stop resource for searching and comparing state incentive programs. To view the information available in the database, click here.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Maine to Invest in Expanding Broadband Access (Government Technology). The U.S. Treasury Department is allocating more than $128 million in American Rescue Plan (ARP) Coronavirus Capital Projects funds to expand broadband access in Maine. This investment will be used by the Maine Connectivity Authority, a public authority established to manage funds for broadband infrastructure. The investment builds on other recent efforts in the state to expand broadband. For example, a $15 million bond proposal for broadband last year marked the state’s first investment in over a decade. The state is also undertaking a broadband mapping initiative to help ensure that expansion efforts target areas that need it. These ARP funds, when combined with the broadband funds Maine is projected to receive from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act upon House passage, will provide the state with hundreds of millions of dollars to increase affordable, high-speed broadband access statewide and narrow Maine’s digital divide.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Talent Development/Attraction
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Hidden Workers Offer Untapped Workforce Talent (Harvard Business School). Company hiring processes are designed to find “perfect” candidates in an efficient manner, but in doing so they often exclude many qualified workers, including caregivers, veterans, the formerly incarcerated, those with disabilities, workers in recovery, etc. These workers are “hidden” by traditional hiring processes. There are an estimated 27 million hidden workers in the U.S. workforce. Companies who have hired one or more of these groups of hidden workers report that these workers are more loyal and perform better on several key metrics compared to traditional sources of talent. With many companies facing a talent shortage, hiring these hidden workers may be the solution.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
State Counting Credentials Reports (Credential Engine). Industry needs skilled workers to fill in-demand jobs, and states must work with education and training providers to develop those skills more efficiently. To align state investments in education and training more closely with industry demand, states need a better understanding of what programs they are currently investing in and how well they are doing in meeting the needs of a fast-changing economy. Credential Engine, in partnership with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, produced a series of reports (“Counting U.S. Postsecondary and Secondary Credentials”) that have become the authoritative accounts of the rapidly changing credentialing landscape in the United States. Each report provides updated, state-specific counts for five credential types offered by instate providers. These include high school diplomas, apprenticeships, licenses, certificates, and degrees, along with estimated attainment and earnings levels by credential for specific demographic groups, occupations, and industries.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Stefan Pryor, Secretary of Commerce, State of Rhode Island – Chair, SEDE Network
|
|
<!– |
<!– |
Stefan Pryor serves as Rhode Island’s first Secretary of Commerce. Appointed by Governor Gina M. Raimondo and confirmed unanimously by the Rhode Island State Senate in 2015, Secretary Pryor oversees and coordinates the State agencies and offices responsible for economic development, business regulation, housing, and workforce development. Rhode Island’s economic progress under Governor Raimondo has been profiled by national publications including Chief Executive magazine (“Rhode Island Boasts The Biggest Climb In ‘Best States / Worst States’ Rankings,” May 2, 2018) and the New York Times (“After Long Economic Slide, Rhode Island Lures New Business,” March 14, 2017). Thirty businesses have announced plans to land or expand in Rhode Island since the Governor’s new programs were implemented about three years ago. Pryor and his team have created Rhode Island’s first state-backed small business loan program and have launched SupplyRI, which connects local suppliers to larger Rhode Island institutions.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
Pryor served for five years (2006-2011) as Deputy Mayor and Director of Economic and Housing Development in the City of Newark, NJ. Pryor and his team played a key role in orchestrating plans for Newark’s first new downtown hotel in 40 years and first new office tower in 20 years. They also helped recruit new commercial tenants to Newark. Before his work in Newark, Pryor was President of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC). The LMDC was created in the aftermath of September 11th by the State and City of New York to plan and help coordinate the physical rebuilding and economic revitalization of Lower Manhattan including the World Trade Center site. From 2002-2006, Pryor served in several leadership capacities at the agency, culminating in his service as the LMDC’s President.
Before his current position, Pryor served as the Commissioner of Education for the State of Connecticut (2011-2015). During his tenure, Connecticut passed important legislation aimed at closing achievement gaps, improving chronically underperforming schools and districts, and increasing rigor and raising expectations for all students.
Pryor received his undergraduate and law degrees from Yale University.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
The SEDE Network Steering Committee includes: Stefan Pryor (RI), Chair; Sandra Watson (AZ), Vice Chair; Julie Anderson (AK); Mike Preston (AR); Kurt Foreman (DE); Don Pierson (LA); Kelly Schulz (MD); Kevin McKinnon (MN); Chris Chung (NC); Alicia Keyes (NM); Michael Brown (NV); Andrew Deye (OH); Dennis Davin (PA); Adriana Cruz (TX); Joan Goldstein (VT); Mike Graney (WV).
|
|
<!– |
|
|
| <!– |
For further questions on the content in this Bulletin or for information on the SEDE Network contact Marty Romitti, CREC Senior Vice President, at mromitti@crec.net.
|
|
<!– |
|
|
|
