How should a policy analyst project outcomes?

In this installment of a continuing series on the steps in Eugene Bardach’s A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: the Eightfold Path to More Effective Problem Solving, we address what Bardach calls “the hardest step” of policy analysis: projecting outcomes.

Projecting outcomes is difficult for two reasons. First, it requires us to predict the future, which we are often very bad at. Second, it requires us to confront the eternal problem of the forecaster: optimism. Lastly, politics often drives people to overstate confidence in their predictions.

Bardach begins by saying that projection of outcomes should extend the logic of common sense. This means using social science to create multiple models of the world, tempering it with facts on the ground and using metaphors to understand a complex world and communicate how it works.

Important when projecting outcomes to choose a base case to compare the policy to. This base case could be anywhere from the present situation to the future situation without the policy in place. It could incorporate future conditions under business as usual, changes that would occur if some policy were adopted, or even results of a certain policy option. The point is to provide a reasonable baseline scenario to compare the policy you are analyzing against.

In order to give actionable and credible information to policymakers, dare to make magnitude estimates. It is often not useful enough to give the direction of the results of a policy: an analyst must go beyond this to say how much the status quo will change under adoption of the policy. While a point estimate can be helpful here, a range will be more intellectually honest in the vast majority of analyses.

An analyst should also pay attention to trends, since trends might be the basis of projections. The analyst should pay attention to the past versus likely future scenarios to see if they line up with one another and should also make sure that cyclical trends are acknowledged so that short-term trends are not overextrapolated into long-term trends. 

One tool for the analyst in projecting outcomes put forth by Bardach is break-even analysis. He advocates the usefulness of this technique because break-even estimates can shrink uncertainty. He suggests using break-even analysis to locate the point of minimum effectiveness given the costs. He also suggests applying this analysis to points in the process to see how effective those points need to be to give good results and to see how likely it is these results will come about and estimating probability of failure. All these approaches improve the credibility of policy analysis.

Bardach further urges analysts to try sensitivity analysis. Techniques such as Monte Carlo Analysis and Long Term Analysis can help determine how robust the analysis is and how likely a scenario will change based on assumptions made.

Important in projections is to confront the optimism problem. Bardach suggests doing this by “scenario writing”: imagining scenarios where things don’t go well and projecting outcomes under those scenarios. Analysts can also brainstorm undesirable side effects like moral hazard, overregulation, rent seeking, and how policies impact other policies. Optimism can pose risks, overlooking the harm policies can do to certain people, so addressing it is vital to ethical policy analysis.

Another factor to consider when projecting outcomes is the emergent-features problem. Sometimes policies can interact with other factors to create new outcomes that are hard to predict. This is a difficult problem, but one that can be ameliorated at least on the margins by playing out how major actors are likely to react to new policies.

A way to organize complex information when projecting outcomes is to construct an outcomes matrix. A table that lists policy options down one axis and criteria down another axis can be a useful tool for helping you as an analyst and the policymaker to understand the tradeoffs inherent in choice of different policy options.

We like to think of policies as transportable from content to context, but policy contexts differ. Just because something works in rural Ohio doesn’t mean it will work in urban Copenhagen. Paying attention to where studies are conducted and how comparable the context is can lead to better policy analysis.

Lastly, the analyst must setup for the next step. Using an outcomes matrix or otherwise making it clear what tradeoffs policymakers will be dealing with will help make the step of confronting trade-offs much easier.

How can cities reduce pedestrian deaths?

Smart Growth America’s 2022 “Dangerous by Design” report highlights the growing trend of pedestrian deaths in cities and states across the U.S.

Overall, Ohio does pretty well in this report compared to other states, with only 1.18 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people, putting it in the top half of states for safe streets. Unfortunately, the bar is low and pedestrian deaths are on the rise throughout Ohio.

According to the report, fatality rates were up 31% in the second half of the 2010s compared to the first half of the decade statewide. This trend was shared by nearly all of its major cities with Toledo (14% increase), Columbus (36% increase), Cincinnati (36% increase), Cleveland (44% increase), and Akron (32% increase) all seeing increases in pedestrian deaths in the second half of the decade over the first.

Smart Growth America argues that these pedestrian deaths are a function of more dangerous streets. If streets are built to facilitate fast movement of cars over pedestrian safety, they are likely to lead to more pedestrian deaths. This leads to less people gaining the benefits of exercise, more use of cars that produce carbon and local emissions, and most directly kill pedestrians in the process

So what can we do to make our streets safer for pedestrians?

One of the most interesting parts of the report to me reading as an Ohioan was that it contained multiple mentions of an Ohio Department of Transportation document, the only state document mentioned in the report. This is the Department of Transportation’s Multimodal Design Guide, a tool for planners and designers to incorporate walking and biking into transportation planning with the goal of eliminating roadway deaths in the state.

One design element included in the guide is to build “buffer zones” between pedestrian walkways and roads. So rather than abutting a sidewalk to a road, the state suggests building a buffer zone anywhere from two to eight feet wide between the two. This means that if a pedestrian falls outside of the sidewalk or if an automobile comes off the road, there is a space between that can reduce the chance a pedestrian will be hit in this instance.

Another element of safe design from the guide is to keep the sidewalk level. An uneven sidewalk can cause pedestrians to exert more force, can disrupt balance, and can increase the risk a pedestrian will fall over, putting her at risk of injury.

The guide also covers the use of different materials for construction of sidewalks. Concrete is preferred since it is firm, smooth, the coloration provides a distinct difference with the asphalt of roads, and it requires less maintenance than asphalt, bricks, and pavers, which all become uneven more quickly than concrete.

There are more things the guide suggests for protecting pedestrians, like providing for a sufficient number of crossings, visibility, and time for pedestrians to cross roads. The point here is that we can reduce pedestrian deaths, we have the tools to do so, it’s just a matter of what our priorities are.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Original Analysis: Climate Change Could Cost Ohio Municipalities Nearly $6B Annually by 2050

COLUMBUS – Local governments across Ohio will need to increase municipal spending by as much as $5.9 billion annually by midcentury in order to adapt to the challenges of a worsening climate crisis, according to a new study released today by the Ohio Environmental Council, Power A Clean Future Ohio, and Scioto Analysis. 

The report, The Bill is Coming Due: Calculating the Financial Cost of Climate Change to Ohio’s Local Governments, provides a conservative estimate of the additional costs that municipalities — including specific estimates for Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Cuyahoga Falls, Dayton, Lima, Marietta, Marion, Oberlin, Piqua, Toledo, Wadsworth, Youngstown — can expect to incur due to climate change. 

“We know municipalities across Ohio, including some of those in the report, are taking action to lower their carbon emissions and secure healthier environments for their residents,” said Joe Flarida, Executive Director of Power a Clean Future Ohio.“But we also know climate change is having real environmental and financial impacts on these communities today.”

The report provides estimates for how much municipalities will have to additionally spend on 10 specific impacts related to climate change, including:

• Air conditioning installation for schools ($1.4 million to $6.8 million)

• Electrical costs ($5.4 million to $79 million)

• Cool roofing ($0 to $4.6 million)

• Cooling centers ($52 million to $590 million)

• Road repair ($170 million to $1 billion)

• Drinking water treatment ($580 million to $2.2 billion)

• Storm recovery ($35 million to $78 million)

• Power line maintenance ($140,000 to $18 million)

• Stormwater management ($140 million to $150 million)

• Elevating roads to avoid flooding ($860 million to $1.7 billion)

Another 40 impacts are identified but not included in the overall estimate.

According to the report, communities across Ohio have been coping with increasing temperatures, flooding, erosion, and climate-related extreme weather events for years. These climate damages are projected to only intensify in approaching decades, generating new costs associated with climate-driven disaster recovery and adaptation, and creating a major strain on already overstretched taxpayers and cash-strapped local governments.

“Obviously Ohio cities cannot afford to wait to take action on climate,” said Toledo City Council Member Nick Komives. “Toledoans are already experiencing the harmful impacts of global warming and we must do all we can to mitigate further pressure on the pocketbooks of our residents. It’s not just good policy, it’s the right thing to do for us all.” 

“The city of Cincinnati needs to take a proactive position and work to address climate challenges, in particular those challenges faced by our disenfranchised populations,” said Cincinnati City Council Member Meeka Owens. “This report is one important resource that can serve as a guide for budgetary decision making. This is also a tool that can be used to educate the public about the effects of climate change. And while some may not understand or care about the impacts to the environment, the financial burden is a metric taxpayers are all too familiar with.”

“The price tag for adapting to our changing climate and protecting communities from the climate crisis is staggering for cities like Youngstown,” said Youngstown City Council Member Lauren McNally. “Our local budgets are already under pressure, and it’s not fair that the bill keeps falling on residents least responsible for creating this mess.”

The report concludes with policy options for local policymakers tasked with securing funding to cover these costs, including: raising taxes, requesting additional funds from the federal government, or exploring legal and other avenues to hold climate polluters financially accountable for existing costs and ongoing damages. 

“There is no time to waste. The costs to address real-time climate impacts and prepare for even more dangerous future impacts continue to grow,” said Nolan Rutschilling, Managing Director of Energy Policy for the Ohio Environmental Council. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment requiring action by local, state, and federal leaders.”

Click here to access the report: https://bit.ly/OHclimatecosts

Click here to access a recording of the press conference: https://bit.ly/OHclimatecosts-pressbriefing

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Media Inquiries: ebacha<at>theoec.org

The Ohio Environmental Council (OEC) is the state’s most comprehensive and effective environmental advocate for a healthier, more sustainable Ohio. The OEC develops and ensures the implementation of forward-thinking, science-based, pragmatic solutions to secure healthy air, land, and water for all who call Ohio home.

Power A Clean Future Ohio (PCFO) is a nonpartisan coalition that works with local leaders to develop and implement proven climate solutions. PCFO is committed to reducing carbon emissions throughout Ohio in big and small ways that make sense for each local community. Ohio’s economy, health and future depend on a new approach to clean energy and climate change.  

Scioto Analysis provides policymakers and policy influencers with evidence-based analysis of pressing public problems. By making clear the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity impacts of public policies, Scioto Analysis gives decision makers the information they need to craft policy that improves lives.

What if anti-abortion activists really wanted to reduce abortion rates?

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision to strike down the right to family privacy around abortion care has cleared the way for Ohio’s six-week ban on legal abortion.

Since about 1 in 3 women do not realize they are pregnant until six weeks or later, this bill effectively bans legal abortion care for a large number of pregnant women. 

Ohio lawmakers are not stopping there, either. Boldly saying that pregnancies resulting from rape and incest should be required by the government to be carried to term, legislative leaders are pushing to ban legal abortion care in its entirety.

This approach may come off as extreme in the face of its tepid support among the general public. According to the Pew Research Center, more Ohioans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases than those who think that it should be illegal in all or most cases. One in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime and most do not believe the extreme ontological claims about moral standing pushed by legislative leaders.

A tragedy of legislative leaders’ efforts on abortion is how ineffective they will be at achieving their own goals. A 2017 cross-country analysis of abortion restrictions found that countries with more restrictions on the practice of abortion do not have lower rates of abortion. Believe it or not, interference with the private medical decisions of citizens is not only frowned upon in liberal democracies and beyond, it is also extremely difficult to do.

Perplexing is legislative leaders’ ignorance of the decline of abortion over the past few decades. According to both the Guttmacher Institute and the CDC, the number of abortions in the United States have declined from a peak of about a million and a half in 1990 to less than a million in 2020.

So what can legislative leaders do if they want to actually reduce abortion? There is one tool that has led to the reduction of abortion over the past decades that legislators could use that also do not infringe on personal medical decisions. That is improvement of access to contraceptives.

Washington University of St. Louis researchers found that providing access to no-cost contraceptives cuts abortion rates by 62% to 78% among those who receive the contraceptives. Researchers at the Guttmacher Institute have found reductions in abortions are driven particularly by increase of use of long-acting reversible contraceptives such as intrauterine devices (IUDs), which have high success rates in reducing pregnancies and give women the ability to control when they want to become pregnant.

A high-profile Colorado program providing long-acting reversal contraceptives to low-income women reduced teen births and abortions by 50% according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment. In my graduate studies I worked with a team to conduct a cost-benefit analysis on a national version of this program, finding such a program would have benefits that would far outweigh its costs.

Abortion is not going away. Even families that plan well find themselves in tragic situations where a fetus is unviable or the mother will die. Police state intervention is unlikely to be tolerated by families or effective in reducing abortion rates. But anti-abortion activists can reduce abortions if they want to: by increasing access to contraceptives that give families control over their reproductive health.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Bribery, Bailouts, and Apathy: A Dark Time for Democracy in the Buckeye State

While the previous installments in this series have focused on overall democratic health, this article will address a specific case study that illustrates the interaction between democracy and policymaking in the state of Ohio. As a policy analyst and not a political scientist, I generally view the political world through the lens of policymaking, which gives me a different perspective on Ohio’s democracy than other commentators. This piece will focus on a specific story in Ohio’s democratic history that has had a big impact on policy in the state.

In January of 2019, Larry Householder was elected Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives in a contested bipartisan vote. It was the culmination of an improbable political comeback for a representative from Appalachia who had served as Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives over a decade before.

His first time as speaker, Householder shepherded in major legislation before coming under investigation for money laundering and irregular campaign practices. The case was closed without filing charges then Householder exited statewide politics for 12 years after being term-limited in 2004. His term was marked by him gaining a reputation as a shrewd politician, not afraid to run roughshod over relationships in order to seize power and get what he wanted.

Householder stormed back onto the scene in 2016, making his way back into the Ohio House of Representatives. Two years into his term, House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger came under investigation from the FBI due to his “lavish lifestyle” and potential inappropriate “relationships with lobbyists and donors,” leading him to a swift resignation from office.

This example of blatant corruption opened the door for Householder. He threw a wrench in the plans of the heir-apparent to the speakership—another Appalachian Representative, Ryan Smith. In June of 2018, Householder forced Smith into an embarrassing 11-round voting circus for his confirmation that then legally allowed the threshold of his confirmation to drop to a plurality, where Smith was elected Speaker with 44 of the chamber’s 99 votes.

What then ensued was a months-long battle leading up to the January election for a new speaker. Over this time period, Householder heavily courted Republicans and Democrats, making promises and using a soft line on policy toward unions to tempt Democrats into his fold. On January 7th, Householder won the votes of 26 Democrats and 26 Republicans to win the majority need to become the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives.

Householder kept his promises to Democrats, not bringing forth any major legislation on unions. He also played hardball in budget negotiations, throwing sand in the gears of the governor’s proposal for a gas tax hike to pay for state roads and forcing Ohio into a rare deadline extension during budget negotiations.

What would become the most notable action of the Householder speakership was House Bill 6, the Orwellianly-dubbed “Ohio Clean Air Program.” The bill introduced $2 billion in new surcharges to subsidize two coal plants and two nuclear plants in the state while also reducing energy efficiency mandates and phasing out renewable energy standards. A prominent left-wing news site dubbed the bill “the worst energy bill of the 21st century.”

The bill’s 51-38 passage in the Ohio House and 19-12 passage in the Ohio Senate came as a surprise to some since a coalition of environmental groups, ratepayer advocacy organizations, and free-market advocates had come out against the bill. The reason it passed became much more clear soon enough.

In July 2020, Householder was arrested by FBI agents at his rural farm in connection with a $60 million bribery scheme orchestrated by agents of FirstEnergy Solutions, the power company that stood to benefit the most from House Bill 6. Also arrested were former Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges, Householder Adviser Jeffrey Longstreth, and lobbyists Neil Clark and Juan Cespedes. Clark later committed suicide on his lawn at a home in Naples, Florida.

Householder was defiant after the arrest. Unlike Rosenberger, who resigned before investigators even filed charges, Householder refused to resign from his post as Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. 

Lawmakers hemmed and hawed, taking a deer-in-the-headlights approach to the biggest racketeering scandal in Ohio history and waiting nearly 11 months to expel him from their leadership role. In the meantime, Householder was reelected to his home district, largely because Democrats had failed to find a single Democrat in his 100,000-person district to file for a challenge to him that year prior to the scandal.

How did this massive racketeering scandal, where the Republican leader of the Ohio House of Representatives and the former chair of the Ohio Republican Party were arrested for a historic $60 million racketeering charge to pass an unpopular bill, impact the Republicans in the 2020 election? Well, Republicans picked up seats, increasing their House majority from 61-38 to 64-35 as Republicans picked off two Democratic incumbents and took over two districts held by term-limited democrats compared to just one pickup by the Democrats.

The lesson I have taken away from this scandal is that, cynically, state politics don’t matter to voters. The largest racketeering scandal in state history hardly registered in the minds of voters, completely swamped by a federal election that consumed everyone’s attention. In 2016, I found that Trump/Clinton election results explained 90% of the variation in contested Ohio House races and 98% of the variation in contested Ohio Senate races. The downballot effect is much more powerful than even monumental levels of corruption.

Are signals from voters enough to ensure policy is made in their interest? In March of last year, Governor DeWine signed a partial repeal of House Bill 6, repealing the nuclear bailouts while leaving the coal bailouts, the energy efficiency reductions, and the phaseout of renewable energy standards intact. At the same time, legislative leaders have ignored judicial mandates to follow fair redistricting rules they themselves agreed to previously out of fear it may threaten their ability to run up legislative seat margins much higher than their support in the general public.

I would be interested to see how Ohio stacks up to other states, but it is hard not to be pessimistic about democracy in the Buckeye state after watching the wake of the Householder scandal. If federalism is to work, it means people need to decouple their view of state politics from federal politics. This may be too difficult to do in an era of mass media and reality television politics. Only time will tell how far Ohio politics will ultimately sink and who will be hurt by that sinking along the way.

This commentary first appeared in the Pulaski Institution’s “50 Takes on Democracy” series.

Ohio’s pandemic recovery lags the country’s

Last week, the Brookings Institution released an analysis of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Ohio’s metropolitan areas.

Looking at the two years from February 2020 to March 2022, the analysis tracks 192 U.S. metro areas’ economic trajectory from the beginning of the pandemic until the spring of 2022.

Included in the analysis are eight Ohio metropolitan areas: the “very large” metro areas of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, the “large” metro areas of Akron, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown, and the “midsize” metro area of Canton.

One of the key indicators analysts at Brookings looked at was job growth. All eight of Ohio’s metro areas had less jobs in March 2022 than in February 2020, reflecting a nationwide trend shared with about two-thirds of the metro areas in the country. 

Columbus was the only metro area in Ohio that landed in the top half nationally for job growth, with 0.7% less jobs in March 2022 than it had it February 2020. Metro areas outside of the “three Cs” fared particularly poorly, all falling in the bottom quartile of metro areas nationally.

Ohio’s metropolitan areas look a lot better from an employment perspective, with every metropolitan area but Cleveland seeing their unemployment rate improve from February 2020 to March 2022. 

Seeing how poorly Ohio’s metropolitan areas fared in job growth, though, suggests unemployment statistics may be driven by other factors rather than people getting jobs who want them. The unemployment rate could also be driven by emigration from the state, early retirement, discouragement and exit from the labor force, or even by deaths of people having trouble getting jobs.

Job posting data tells an interesting story as well. Job postings are up in all eight of Ohio’s metro areas as they are up across the country as well. Canton, Cincinnati, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown have seen a moderate increase in job postings compared to national trends. Akron, Cleveland, and Columbus have seen smaller increases in job postings. These likely reflect slower economic recovery in Ohio compared to the rest of the country, likely due to similar factors that have driven slower job growth.

One more interesting statistic from this report is the increase in rent over the past two years. Rents increased in all but two of the 148 metro areas Brookings had data for (San Francisco and San Jose being the exceptions). Ohio’s “three C’s” had slower rent growth than the country, with rents increasing in the 15-17% range. Akron, Dayton, and Toledo, however, saw rent increases more in line with the rest of the country, increasing 20-24% over that time period.

Ohio’s metro areas are doing much better economically than they did in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they still have less jobs than in February 2020 and are lagging behind the country in job postings. While the metropolitan areas can take solace in improved unemployment rates compared to the rest of the country, the reason unemployment is low might not bode well for the future of Ohio’s metropolitan areas.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.

Ohio economists agree state tax credit would reduce child poverty

In a survey published by Scioto Analysis this morning, 21 of 23 Ohio economists agreed a state child tax credit would substantially reduce child poverty.

Economists who agreed with the statement said that the magnitude of the reduction in child poverty would depend on the design of the program and whether it was supplemented with other programs such as a federal credit. One noted the evidence of the impacts of a federal credit. Of the two who disagreed with the statement, one said the amount of state child tax credits currently in place would not be enough to lift many children out of poverty.

Of the respondents, 19 of 23 economists agreed the costs of a state child tax credit would be offset over the long term by the benefits of improving outcomes for children. Those who agreed pointed to past research on investment in children, though one economists pointed out that children leaving the state as adults may offset this effect at the state level. One economist uncertain of the impact said that targeting to low-income children would be key to recouping public costs of the program.

Among respondents, 16 of 23 economists disagreed with the claim that parental labor supply would fall significantly due to a child tax credit. Among those who disagreed, some noted that there may be impacts on the labor supply, though that those impacts would be small. One economist who was uncertain noted the importance of the structure of the credit to its impact. One who agreed said the impact would be largest for low-income parents.

The Ohio Economic Experts Panel is a panel of over 40 Ohio Economists from over 30 Ohio higher educational institutions conducted by Scioto Analysis. The goal of the Ohio Economic Experts Panel is to promote better policy outcomes by providing policymakers, policy influencers, and the public with the informed opinions of Ohio’s leading economists.

Energy use in Ohio on the decline

Ohio’s energy economy is changing. To understand how it will change as we approach midcentury, we need to understand how much energy Ohioans will be consuming at that point. To do this, Scioto Analysis has created a simple projection for energy usage in Ohio by midcentury.

According to the Energy Information Administration, energy use in the state of Ohio has fallen in the last 20 years. In 1999 the total energy consumption for the state was 4.2 trillion British Thermal Units. Two decades later, that number has dropped to 3.6 trillion Btus.

How much energy a state consumes is impacted by the population and the state's economic health, the latter of which is often measured by gross domestic product. A state with more people will consume more energy than a state with less people assuming per-capita energy consumption is the same. Similarly, a state with more economic activity will consume more energy than a state with less economic activity since energy use is necessary for manufacturing, distribution, and retail operations.

We created a model to project energy usage based on the past twenty years’ data of population and economic activity, regressing energy usage on year, population, and gross domestic product. Using this model, we project that by the year 2050, Ohio will consume ​​about 2.6 trillion British Thermal Units of energy.

This methodology assumes current energy, population, and GDP trends would continue the way they are. Unexpected events will certainly change these trends. That was demonstrated in the graph below where you can see that  2008 when the recession had dramatic negative effects on energy use. Similarly, there are unexpected events that could impact population growth such as shifts in migration, mortality, or fertility trends.

This decrease in energy use suggests Ohio that is moving to a more energy efficient economy. Public policy decisions over the next thirty years may impact these trends one way or another.

Scioto Analysis releases cost-benefit analysis of urban canopy programs

Scioto Analysis released a cost-benefit analysis on urban canopy coverage goals this morning. Analysts on the project estimate that tree planting will cost Ohio communities $10.29 per tree, while economic present benefits from carbon sequestration, stormwater runoff prevented, air pollution reduced, energy saved, and crime reduced range from about $10-21 per tree depending on the city.

“We found that major cities across the state would experience health, environmental, and crime reduction benefits outweighing the planting and pruning costs of tree canopy programs,” said analyst Madeleine Murphy.

Beyond the economic benefits, analysts found expanding canopy cover by 10% could prevent hundreds of crimes depending on the city, increase home value, and cause a variety of physical and mental health benefits.

“We all know people like to see trees in their neighborhood, but with this study, we have economic evidence of the broader benefits accrued to society because of tree planting programs,” said Scioto Analysis Principal Rob Moore.

This is the latest in a series of demonstration cost-benefit analyses conducted by Scioto Analysis. Past cost-benefit analyses have been conducted on state volunteer programs, school closures for COVID-19, and the state Earned Income Tax Credit.

How can rural Ohio build a tech workforce?

Last month, the Center on Rural Innovation released a report on the rural tech workforce in America.

The report was designed well, combining original surveys of rural adults and employers with a broad labor market dataset and an extensive interview battery to draw insights into what America’s rural tech workforce looks like.

What I found especially compelling about this study was the work the researchers did finding out who was hiring tech workers outside of the tech industry. In particular, they looked at tech workers in banks, education, government, health care, insurance, manufacturing, mining, finance, and utilities.

Something that struck me was that over half of the tech jobs in these non-tech industries were in government and higher education, one industry that constitutes the public sector and another that is heavily influenced by it. All told, there would be over 2,000 more tech jobs across the country in these fields if rural tech employment met the national average.

This makes sense when we think of what rural economies look like. The largest employer in many if not most rural communities are local governments and higher education institutions. These are sectors that (a) are hard to automate workers out of, and (b) generally need people to be available locally to provide services. Funding from the state through school funding formula and through tuition payments often are buoying these occupations.

The occupation group the study identified as having the largest gap between rural tech employment and national tech employment was manufacturing. While the Center on Rural Innovation only identified 15,000 rural tech jobs in the manufacturing sector, it said the sector would have an additional 43,000 tech jobs if its tech employment met the national average.

What kind of jobs specifically are these sectors missing? As far as manufacturers go, the answer is software developers. The researchers identified under 5,000 rural software developers in the manufacturing sector. If there were as many software developers in rural manufacturing as there were in manufacturing across the country as a whole, that number would be over 30,000.

But government had a gap here, too, particularly in employment of people in computer occupations like cybersecurity engineers and computer system engineers and architects. The researchers found less than 5,000 rural workers in these roles in government, a number that would be over 15,000 if rural government computer worker matched the overall rate of government computer worker employment.

Spurring employment in manufacturing and other industries can be difficult for the public sector. Governments in Ohio can do things like support training programs, build tech into k-12 education, and support coworking and accelerators for job creation that can potentially spur some growth, but the impact could be limited.

One place Ohio governments can have an impact right away, though, is in growing their own tech workforce. By hiring more people into cybersecurity and computer system engineering, local governments can make their data more secure, improve their services, and create valuable jobs that give people a reason to live in their communities.

Sometimes the best jobs program is to just hire people.

This commentary first appeared in the Ohio Capital Journal.