By BRIAN HOWEY, guest columnist
Indiana Manufacturers Association President Brian Burton dropped an alarming statistic: 45 percent of the Hoosier workforce will be retiring in the next decade as the Baby Boom generation heads into the sunset.
Gov. Eric Holcomb calls it the “silver tsunami,” with 10,000 American Baby Boomers retiring each week. Indiana will need to be filling a million jobs in the next 10 years. If you think finding nursing home employees or a good plumber is tough now, just wait.
It’s compounded by a dramatic fall in teen birth rates (a good thing), as well as those of Latinos and Asian Americans, and President Trump’s decision to clamp down on immigration, even those who seek to come here legally. The American experience, as many of your family elders can relate, has historically been fueled by waves of immigrants.
“This is a major issue and will be for a long time,” Burton told me. “We have two problems, skills and population. Our population is remaining flat. We are going to have to convince people to move to Indiana.”
Indiana gained only 31,000 people last year. According to National Public Radio, more than 3.8 million babies were born in the United States last year. But last year’s drop in the nation’s birth rate, about 2 percent overall, was the largest drop in a single year since 2010.
It reminded me of a story related to the unfolding Russian demographic crisis, where the population is expected to decline from 146 million to somewhere between 80 and 200 million by 2050. Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov declared a “Day of Conception” on Sept. 12, 2007. Those who had babies on June 12 of the following year won prizes.
It puts a whole new emphasis on Nike’s famed slogan, “Just do it.”
What I couldn’t find out is whether Gov. Morozov’s strategy worked, but I asked Holcomb about it in December. Had he thought about a Hoosier Day of Conception? The winner could get a grand prize of a Chevy Silverado, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a Subaru Outback, or, Holcomb’s preference, a Toyota Tundra (all made in Indiana). Or, perhaps, four years of free college tuition.
“You need to look at the birth rate and death rate of any county,” Holcomb said. “Pick a county and look at birth rate and death rate. Howard County’s birth rate/death rate is like plus 12. Or pick out Rush County and do the same, or pick out the projections, and people get giddy or happy when it’s plus four. People! Not percent, people! This is part of the challenge.”
We are not alone. Other states are feeling the demographic clamp as well. Vermont is now offering $10,000 to folks who move there, payable over two years.
While we had a laugh about optimizing the Nike slogan in Hoosier nests across the cities and prairies, Holcomb is preparing to invest in workforce and quality of life here in the state. Holcomb’s agenda includes things like enrolling 11,000 into a Workforce Ready Grant program, and career pathway courses for every high school student.
As for a specific ask for Gov. Holcomb and the General Assembly, Burton will be advocating an expansion of the state’s training grants from $10 million to $20 million.
“We would like to see a relocation incentive,” he said. “We do a lot of economic incentives for companies, but not workers.” He proposes eliminating the state income tax for imported workers for five years, saying that these new workers would still be paying property and sales taxes. “It’s a net positive,” he said.
Holcomb is also aiming at investments in rural broadband, which would allow many Hoosiers to work from anywhere in the state, and $90 million to expand the state’s bike trail network. These are the amenities that many younger people are looking for, including more in mass transit. I got my driver’s license on the first day eligible, but my sons were in no hurry.
Matt Greller of Accelerating Indiana Municipalities is advocating regional incentive hubs and combined taxation. Other states are investing in these quality of life aspects. Legislation he is advocating would allow regions to raise food/beverage, sales and income taxes to build such amenities. If we don’t do it here, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee will.
“Our infrastructure is all about quality of life and place,” Holcomb said. “It’s not that sexy a topic when you’re talking about connecting, but when you’re talking about 400,000 Hoosiers are living in an Internet darkness who are not connected, who are unserved in 2018, (that’s) unacceptable.”
Holcomb calls it “stitching together communities like never before,” with broadband access and bike trails, saying, “these are all factors that feed off themselves.”
“When businesses are looking, or people are looking at where do they want to live” the state has to “have its act together in terms of community development. Because people want to move to vibrant growing areas that offer in your backyard or Mass Avenue, or in Brown County in the middle of the woods in a cabin” connectivity, be it via trails or broadband.
Yes, yes. Stitching communities. More broadband. And, of course, telling your legislators and your grown kids and grandkids to, well, just do it.
Brian A. Howey of Nashville is publisher of Howey Politics Indiana at howeypolitics.com. Find him on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
