Iowa losing millennials, needs workers

We can't do anything about Iowa weather, but maybe there are other ways to retain our young workers and our seniors

William H. Frey’s interesting analysis (cited below) of census data on migration for the Brookings Institution reveals shifts over recent years in moves by both young workers (aged 25-34) and seniors (aged 55+). While his analysis focused on major metropolitan areas, are there lessons in here for Iowa for attracting and retaining either group?

First, despite economic recovery, relocations by both groups have not returned to pre-recession levels. Does that mean individuals are constrained by lack of resources from moving to employment centers or retirement communities? The choice of places people have gone or left also suggest affordability is a primary concern. Iowans take heart! Our state has a delightfully low cost of living, particularly when it comes to housing and transportation.

Houston is #1! (Source: elratoneducado.blogspot.com)

The number one landing spot for young workers between 2012 and 2017 was… Houston. Dallas was #3. Why are we not hearing more about these trendy places? Other cities with a net gain of 7000 or more include Austin, Charlotte, Denver, Portland and Seattle. All of the top 20 are in the South or the West except for Columbus, Kansas City and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Metros with the biggest loss of millennials are (in order) New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego and Miami. Frey’s analysis: Today’s young adults, now including those in the prime millennial ages, show a penchant for “educated places”… as well as more affordable areas… with pre-recession hotspots like Riverside, Phoenix and Atlanta showing reduced appeal. Those pre-recession hotspots are, of course, full of car-dependent suburban subdivisions.

“Educated places” like Austin, Denver and Seattle have nearly half of young workers with college degrees. This is also true of the three Midwestern cities among the leading landing places for young workers. It’s not the only key to success: #1 Houston has only 33 percent of young workers with college degrees, and Dallas is barely above that, while Boston (58%), Washington (54%), Hartford (50%) and New York (47%) all show net losses. Surely affordability, or the lack thereof, has a lot to do with that; those of us who believe price signals are real have been waiting awhile for the trendy places to top out while places with lower costs of living take off.

Seniors are, not surprisingly, headed for the Sun Belt, led by Phoenix, Tampa-St. Petersburg, and Riverside. But sunny Los Angeles showed the second largest losses among seniors (behind New York), and San Diego also had a net loss. Seniors who relocate seek the sun but are also fleeing high costs-of-living.

Iowa is one of 19 states that had net out-migration among both groups between 2012 and 2017: -896 among young workers, and -1705 among seniors—this despite our low cost-of-living and low unemployment rate. Iowa also has sad, lonely employers: “I’ve been in three business visits already today,” Governor Kim Reynolds said one day last month, “and at every stop, business is growing…. But they need people” (Miller 2019).

Of course, if there were a simple answer for that, we’d have found it by now. We can probably now say that there’s no quick fix—whether that be tax cuts, business relocation incentives, or big attractions. A number of towns have maintained or increased their population by welcoming refugees (Misra 2019); we might think about enhancing our Bureau of Refugee Services as well as lobbying the Trump administration to change their current anti-refugee policy.

In the longer term, we might think about the future impact of automation on employment… research suggests that small cities (like Dubuque and Sioux City, rated the most likely in Iowa to suffer great impacts) will feel the effects of automation on employment more than large cities, because large cities have greater proportions of knowledge workers (Frank et al. 2019). We probably want to stop the streak of several years of funding education below the level of inflation, which looks to continue this year (Lynch 2019); sure, it saves money and allows us to keep taxes low, but it hardly supports the “educated places” Frey notes are attracting younger workers. If the state needs workers we need a plan to fund essential services.

MAIN SOURCE: William H. Frey, “How Migration of Millennials and Seniors Has Shifted Since the Great Recession,” Brookings, 31 January 2019

SEE ALSO: "What is the Future of Iowa's Small Towns?" Holy Mountain, 3 July 2018