Investing in Maine’s Workers
By Rob Brown & Auta Main
The days when a high school diploma assured a good job for life are long gone. Like most growing industries, even Maine’s manufacturing sector now frequently requires education well beyond high school just to get in the door, let alone advance up the career – and income – ladder.
To make better jobs available to more Maine people, we must better align educational programs that should be ladders from poverty to self-sufficiency. To that end, Maine’s Dept of Labor and Opportunity Maine are working together to promote a more comprehensive vision of workforce and economic development that will improve business growth, create good jobs, and raise incomes in Maine.
Maine has the lowest incomes and the lowest rates of degree attainment of all the New England states. Right now, looking at the available job market, we have a surplus of low-skill workers and a shortage of middle- to high-skill workers, leaving many businesses struggling to grow. For the sake of our economy, common sense dictates that we invest in those low-income workers’ ability to gain the skills needed to meet this shortage.
Recent business surveys bear this out. For the National Association of Manufacturers, 90% of respondents indicated a moderate to severe shortage of skilled employees. For the Maine Development Foundation, 42% of respondents ranked “educated workforce” as their #1 need, far ahead of other concerns such as taxes, transportation or utility costs.
Furthermore, Phillip Trostel, a research economist at UMaine’s Margaret Chase Smith Center and School of Economics, has demonstrated that the states with the highest percentage of degree earners also have jobs that pay the highest salaries. High-wage employers in need of high-skill workers are not going to locate in a state with a workforce like ours.
To improve the composition of our economy, we need to change the composition of our workforce. We must invest in educational opportunity. Any economic strategy for Maine that does not have coordinated investments in the skills and capacities of our workforce at its core is not sustainable and will doubtfully succeed.
Recognizing this fact, Maine recently passed two innovative laws aimed at increasing access to higher education and developing the state’s workforce.
The Competitive Skills Scholarship Program simultaneously cuts worker compensation taxes for Maine businesses and invests in low-income workers ability to get through a degree, certification, apprenticeship, or on-the-job training program, and is directly tied to the workforce needs of high-wage employers in every region of the State. These are folks for whom tuition is but one barrier and the CSSP provides needed support with childcare, books, transportation, and remedial math, reading, writing, and computer skills.
The Opportunity Maine Program invests in those same workers’ ability to enter Maine’s workforce in a good job without immediately sinking under the burden of education debt. It will allow those who earn an associate or bachelor’s degree at a Maine school to be reimbursed for education loan payments through a state income tax credit for any years in which they continue to live, work and pay taxes here after graduation. Alternatively, businesses that pay employees’ education loans as an employee benefit will be able to claim the tax credit, providing a strategic tax cut and a strong incentive to expand or locate businesses in Maine.
These two programs combined represent the most innovative, ambitious investment in affordable education and economic development in the nation. They are two sides of the same coin, helping Maine workers prepare for careers in high-wage, high-demand occupations, and rewarding hard work and a commitment to Maine with educational and economic opportunity.
The Competitive Skills Scholarship Program and the Opportunity Maine Program are two elements of an ambitious, visionary, workforce and economic development strategy that will result in a more prosperous future for Maine’s workers, families, businesses and communities. Combined, they hold the transformative potential to sustainably address Maine’s demographic imbalance, build our skilled workforce, raise incomes, and improve our business growth.
Rob Brown: Developing Maine’s workforce
Monday, March 24, 2008 – Bangor Daily News
The Opportunity Maine program is a bold, simple and universal promise to reward hard work and a commitment to Maine with educational and economic opportunity. It is a powerful new tool to help our citizens afford a college degree and to build the skilled work force our businesses need.
The program will allow those who earn an associate or bachelor’s degree at a Maine school, and continue to live, work and pay taxes here, to be reimbursed for student loan payments through a state income tax credit. Alternatively, businesses that pay employees’ student loans as an employee benefit will be able to claim the tax credit, providing a substantial, strategic tax cut and a strong incentive to expand or locate businesses in Maine.
This will raise aspirations and, in turn, increase degree enrollment and completion, economic development, and average incomes. By virtually eliminating the burden of educational debt for Maine’s workers, we will strengthen our economy for the long haul.
In a sense, the Opportunity Maine program argues that if we build the work force, the jobs will come. And there is plenty of evidence to bear this out.
After World War II, the GI Bill made a historic investment in educational opportunity. Businesses responded immediately, generating the greatest period of economic expansion and broadly shared prosperity we have ever seen.
Silicon Valley became a center of high-skill, high-wage jobs because there was already a high concentration of skilled workers, world-class research facilities and an enviable quality of life.
Ireland went from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to one of the wealthiest and is a magnet for high-wage, high-skill businesses, largely because of sustained investments in college affordability as an economic development strategy.
Business surveys all show education level of the work force is a top consideration in deciding where to locate or expand. In a recent survey by the Maine Development Foundation, 42 percent of Maine businesses ranked “educated work force” as their No. 1 need, far ahead of other concerns such as taxes, transportation or utility costs.
According to Community College System President John Fitzsimmons, at least 4,200 good jobs requiring a minimum of an associate degree went unfilled or were filled with out-of-state recruits last year because we do not have the skilled work force those businesses need.
The education level of Maine’s work force is hurting our economy and demographics will make this trend worse. Research shows the No. 1 predictor of high average incomes is the percentage of degree holders in the work force. Not surprising, Maine is last on both counts, with incomes and degree completion roughly 25 percent behind the New England average.
Recently, the bipartisan Committee on Future Maine Prosperity came to a unanimous agreement, stating, “Maine must demand an unwavering commitment to prosperity from its leaders in government and the private sector.” To honor that commitment, the No. 1 step for education and work force development in their report is the Opportunity Maine program.
Also just out is the Maine Economic Growth Council’s report on Maine’s economy. One of the few bright spots they highlight is the Opportunity Maine program — if legislators are true to their promise to expand educational opportunity and upgrade the skills of our work force.
The Drum Major Institute, a national, nonpartisan think tank, ranked the Opportunity Maine program one of the 10 best policy initiatives in the country last year, giving us an A+ and the designation “Best of 2007.”
Our organization, Opportunity Maine, brought this idea from citizens’ initiative into law, with the support of chambers of commerce, labor unions, parents, educators, and town councils from Aroostook to York County. The biggest endorsement of all, however, came from more than 500 citizens who collected the signatures for the Opportunity Maine initiative, and more than 72,000 registered voters who stopped to talk with them and to sign the petition. Public support was so overwhelming that, for only the sixth time in Maine history, the Legislature passed an initiative into law — unanimously in the House of Representatives.
Now, we face the challenge of translating the Opportunity Maine program’s promise into results and we are traveling the state meeting with various stakeholders to aggressively promote this.
It will take a sustained effort, and individuals and businesses — including Time Warner Cable, Maine Medical Center, University Credit Union, Diversified Communications, Bangor Savings Bank, Wright Express, Northern Utilities, Bancroft & Co. and Gorham Savings Bank — have joined with us to make educational and economic opportunity a reality here in Maine and build our economy for generations to come. We hope you’ll join us, too.
Rob Brown is executive director of Opportunity Maine.
