(INDIANAPOLIS) — A new Indiana Chamber of Commerce report says the state, despite a series of past improvements, is not keeping up economically with its neighbors and key national competitors. Indiana Vision 2025: 2020 Snapshot reinforces the group’s previous findings that deficits in education preparation and attainment result in wide-ranging ramifications.
“Talent shortfalls are not a new challenge,” declares Indiana Chamber President and CEO Kevin Brinegar. “But they are more important than ever when coupled with the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. And that lack of education/workforce preparation affects so many areas of this analysis – from lagging personal income and poor health choices to a shortage of new entrepreneurs and business formations.”
The Indiana Vision 2025 plan features biennial Report Cards that compare Indiana to the other 49 states. The 2020 Snapshot uses 32 – about half – of the traditional metrics tied to the goals in the plan. It takes a closer look at Indiana and its Midwest counterparts and also does a similar evaluation to five key competitor states (Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah).
Of particular interest to local business and community leaders, data – primarily in the education and health care areas – are provided for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development’s 12 economic regions.
Brinegar is encouraged by a recent emphasis on workforce training, but he notes that alone is not enough. “Indiana legislators have abdicated their responsibilities to students and parents by taking the state backward in abandoning accountability and failing to maintain a leading-edge approach.”
When combining the Outstanding Talent rankings into an overall average, Indiana leads only Kentucky and Tennessee among the nine total states. Among competitors, it trails Minnesota and Utah by wide margins.
Indiana’s outcomes in the other three Indiana Vision 2025 driver areas have room for improvement:
- Attractive Business Climate: Highly touted due to policy and program efforts of the last two decades, further progress is limited by ongoing health (smoking, obesity, drug death) concerns. While second among the five Midwest states, Indiana’s average ranking among the national competitors in its area of strength is only fourth of six states.
- Superior Infrastructure: Comparisons are limited in this area with four metrics. While Indiana’s road funding rank will improve once the 2017 state plan is fully implemented and accounted for in future analyses, a major risk is the rising electricity prices (now 31st among the 50 states) that threaten Indiana’s manufacturing prowess.
- Dynamic and Creative Culture: Indiana is in second-place ties both regionally and with competitors due to top 10 rankings in university business spinouts, employment at companies six years and older, employment at foreign-owned firms and exports. The slide continues, however, in the important categories of new entrepreneurs (44th) and share of employment at firms less than five years old (47th).
“A successful post-pandemic economy will require more than Indiana’s traditional business strengths,” Brinegar adds. “Indiana has made strong progress in various metrics and analyses from the time the Chamber began these economic evaluations in 2000. It shows what can be accomplished with bold, focused and consistent efforts.
“Other states, of course, are not standing still. Indiana trails its neighbors and competitors in far too many areas. We must prepare our current students and residents to the fullest degree possible, attract new people to our state, improve our health measures and thrive in the information and technology-based businesses of the 21st century.”
The numbers, as always, tell only part of the story. But they are a part that cannot be ignored. Brinegar concludes: “We want Indiana to be a great place to work and live for generations to come. That’s why this is so important.”
Indiana has six top 10 and four bottom 10 rankings in the 32 categories included in the 2020 snapshot. Nationally, Utah possesses 12 top 10s and only one bottom 10. Minnesota and Tennessee are on the plus side nine and seven times, respectively. North Carolina is the only one of the 10 states with no bottom 10 rankings.
The Indiana regional analysis provides two data points for each of the 11 metrics. It does show recent improvement in many regions but also reinforces wide differences in educational achievement, health outcomes and recent migration patterns.
The 2020 Snapshot is available at www.indianachamber.com/2025.
About Indiana Vision 2025
Mission: “Indiana will be a global leader in innovation and economic opportunity where enterprises and citizens prosper.” Indiana Vision 2025 was developed by a statewide task force of community, business and education leaders.
Lead investors in the Indiana Chamber Foundation, making the research and implementation possible, include Duke Energy and NIPSCO, champion level; Vectren and Indiana Michigan Power, gold; and Eli Lilly and Company, Indiana American Water, Indiana Energy Association, OneAmerica, Toyota and Wabash Valley Power Alliance, silver.
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The Indiana Chamber partners with 25,000 members and investors – representing over four million Hoosiers – to achieve the mission of “cultivating a world-class environment which provides economic opportunity and prosperity.”
