Not long ago, Nebraska’s growth was quite literally a national cover story.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts soared through the air wearing skis and goggles on the Olympic-themed March 2018 cover of Site Selection, an economic development industry magazine.
The cartoon image illustrated Nebraska’s high-flying, three-year run as winner of the “Governor’s Cup,” awarded to the state landing the most economic development projects per capita in the nation.
But when Site Selection last month named the top development states for 2025, Nebraska was nowhere to be found. It didn’t crack the magazine’s top 10 at all, the second straight year it missed the list.
It’s the latest indicator that formerly front-running Nebraska has lost its edge when it comes to competing for jobs and economic growth, creating what state business leaders see as an urgent challenge and cloud darkening the state’s future.
A Flatwater Free Press analysis comparing Nebraska job growth to that of six neighboring states illustrates the state’s diminished economic competitiveness — and suggests it has cost Nebraska 70,000 jobs in recent years.
Those vanishing jobs mean fewer families, less prosperity and lower tax collections to support education and other vital services, said Dana Bradford, an Omaha businessman who has worked on the state’s employment challenges as past chairman of the Greater Omaha Chamber and Aksarben Foundation.
“It’s a silent killer,” Bradford told the Flatwater Free Press. “Somewhere along the line, companies just decided, ‘We are going somewhere else.’”
Economists, business leaders, economic developers and others cite a variety of complex challenges behind Nebraska’s slip in growing jobs, including the state’s worker shortage, a lack of affordable housing and child care, a lack of growth in high-paying jobs and the longtime “brain drain” of young college graduates to other states.
But some also cite a far simpler reason: State leaders have not made growth a priority.
A statewide economic development strategy produced in 2019 by a blue-ribbon panel of Nebraskans was largely shelved. State policymakers did enact some of Blueprint Nebraska’s tax recommendations — in a way that burdened state finances with a deepening structural deficit.
Tens of millions of dollars have been sliced from economic development programs as Gov. Jim Pillen and the Legislature work to balance the budget.
The Pillen administration, through cuts and attrition, has slashed staffing inside the Nebraska Department of Economic Development by 27% in the past nine months alone.
State lawmakers have capped tax incentive payments, creating uncertainty in the programs. Last year, they passed a Pillen-championed anti-China bill that made many of the nation’s biggest corporations ineligible to receive tax incentives, a move they’re now seeking to fix.
Nebraska has “stepped back” from its focus on economic development at the same time that competing states are stepping up efforts, the Greater Omaha Chamber said in a recent report.
“I just don’t think we’ve really had a commitment to growth in the state,” said Eric Thompson, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln economist. “I just think we’ve been focused on other priorities — and that’s OK. But this is one of the things that happens.”
There are recent signs the state has begun to turn new attention to growing jobs.
A Pillen-sponsored tax bill enhancing state tax incentives passed the Legislature this year, as did measures to expand child care support and spur housing construction.
The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry is preparing to dust off Blueprint Nebraska and give it new life. The chamber earlier this year quietly launched a growth-focused initiative it’s now preparing to roll out statewide.
Matt Williams, the state chamber’s interim president, is hopeful numbers like those in the Flatwater analysis spotlight the urgent need to respond now.
“We have to use new thoughts and new energies and new directions to step up and solve these problems,” he said. “The trajectory we are on right now is not going to be healthy for us in the long term.”
But it won’t be easy. He and other business leaders say it will take a concerted statewide effort — over a number of years — to alter the state’s current course.
****
In 1987, the economic anxiety across Nebraska was palpable.
Omaha was reeling from the departure of an energy company — the not-yet-infamous Enron — to Houston. Food giant ConAgra was threatening to leave, too. The deepest agricultural depression in a half-century threatened the entire state. There was a sinking feeling Nebraska was being left behind.
“The sky could be falling,” recalled John Cederberg, a business accountant long active in state policy. “I don’t think it was psychological. It was real.”
In response, the Legislature for the first time enacted major business incentives, providing tax cuts for businesses that invest and create jobs in the state.
The program known by its LB 775 bill number was blasted as costly “corporate welfare.” But the results were hard to argue.
In the decade prior to LB 775, Nebraska’s private sector job growth trailed the average for the other states in the north-central Great Plains — Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.
After, it began easily topping the region average, typically leading all the states but the Dakotas in average annual growth. A Flatwater analysis shows that by 2000, Nebraska had 90,000 more jobs than it would have had it continued to trail the region’s growth as before.
Nebraska remained a regional job growth leader into this century. But sometime around 2010, the narrative flipped.
Nebraska’s job growth had exceeded the regional average in 14 of 19 years prior to 2010. It has trailed the region in 11 of the 16 years since.
Nebraska’s annual average growth rate was 42% higher than the region’s in the two decades before 2010. If it had kept that pace from 2010 on, the state would boast 70,000 more jobs than it currently does.
Instead, it has trailed the region’s growth by 6% in that time frame.
Nebraska has lost ground to every regional competitor except Iowa, which has recently posted even more dismal job growth.
While Nebraska’s private sector employment was flat over the past two years, Iowa lost 28,000 such jobs. The other five states in the region added a combined 50,000 jobs in that time.
The new analysis follows studies released last fall by the Omaha chamber and Aksarben Foundation that found job growth in Omaha and Lincoln is trailing regional peer cities.
But the Flatwater analysis offers a longer view and reveals the starkly different fortunes before and after 2010. That appears to suggest something fundamental has changed.
Lost job growth
A recent study by Creighton University shows Nebraska’s lacking competitiveness and lost job growth.
Creighton economist Ernie Goss and researcher Andrew Hoover conducted a “shift-share” analysis of Nebraska jobs by industry, comparing 2000 through 2010 and 2010 through 2024. The analysis looked at Nebraska job growth during those periods, national job growth and what the state’s job growth would have been expected to be based on the industry makeup of the Nebraska economy.
Much like the Flatwater analysis, it showed Nebraska performed better in the before-2010 time period, adding over 25,000 jobs more than it would have been expected to given its industry makeup.
But during the latter period, Nebraska underperformed, adding some 60,000 fewer jobs than would be expected.
Nebraska particularly missed out on jobs in trucking and insurance.
The state has lost 2,500 trucking jobs since 2010, but based on national growth in the industry, it missed out on a total of 7,600. It also missed out on 7,500 insurance jobs.
“Competitively speaking,” Goss said, Nebraska is not faring well.
“Nebraska’s numbers are not looking good,” he said.
Josie Schafer, director of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Public Affairs Research, said 2010 is meaningful to her, because that’s right around the time Nebraska and the nation hit a “demographic cliff.”
The oldest Baby Boomers were beginning to enter their retirement years, while the smaller millennial generation was moving into the workforce. “The Baby Boom generation retiring is such a big deal because … we don’t have a replacement for it,” she said.
The resulting worker shortage changed the game, as states’ attention turned from chasing companies to chasing people. Nebraska, it appears, has not fared well in that competition.
That notion is also supported by data on the “brain drain” — the loss through migration of college-educated people — that Schafer tracks.
In 2010, Nebraska was annually losing a net of about 1,000 people with bachelor’s degrees or higher. By 2020: 4,000 per year. The figure is still over 3,000 annually.
Bryan Slone, former CEO of the state chamber, said 2010 also signaled the dawn of a technology boom marked by the explosion of smartphones and apps.
In 2010, Apple sold fewer than 40 million iPhones. In 2015, it sold 230 million.
Nebraska has a growing tech sector, Slone said, but it’s not growing like other states and has not been viewed as a technology state. That’s making it harder to attract tech jobs and young tech workers.
“It’s very easy in this era to go in a downward spiral … because there’s a chicken and egg,” he said. “You can’t grow your economy without young people, but you can’t attract young people without having a growing economy.“
In 2010, Nebraska and the nation were also emerging from the Great Recession brought on by a housing market collapse. Housing construction in Nebraska dipped sharply amid the recession. It has never recovered.
That has led to a shortage of affordable housing and caused housing prices to spike, putting a single-family home out of the reach of many families. That, too, makes it harder to attract workers and families.
Nebraska could long boast cheap housing as a big selling point, and compared to the coasts, that’s still true. But in the seven-state region, a Flatwater analysis of federal cost-of-living data suggests Nebraska’s housing costs since 2008 have risen from fourth highest to the second highest.
“I do believe housing is a big part of this,” Slone said.
The need to build more housing. Attract young workers. Grow tech. All of those have a familiar ring. In fact, the state nearly seven years ago came out with a “blueprint” for tackling such issues.
****
During nearly a decade as CEO of Omaha-based Union Pacific railroad, Lance Fritz saw firsthand how ferociously Nebraska’s neighbors fight for jobs.
He remembers Arkansas’ then-governor had a war room next to his office, where maps on the wall with pins and markers denoted new business targets. Iowa, Kansas and Utah aggressively pursued UP jobs — some even making bids to wrest the entire headquarters out of the city it’s been based in since 1862.
“I would get calls all the time with different packages, seeing if they could make it attractive enough to locate there or relocate there — exit Nebraska entirely,” he said.
Some of the offers were tempting, he said, though never quite enough to justify the pain the company and its employees would endure by picking up and leaving.
Nebraska, Fritz said, needs to worry about that equation all the time.
“Whether we recognize it or not, Nebraska is in a fight for its economic survival, and the fact that we are not growing is very troublesome,” he said. “In my personal opinion, we’re not doing enough to make us look attractive to the vast population that could potentially be here.”
Around 2017, Fritz and other Omaha business leaders expressed concerns to then-Gov. Ricketts about the state’s economic trajectory and their difficulty finding workers.
That helped prompt Ricketts, then-University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds and others to launch Blueprint Nebraska, a statewide effort to produce an economic development strategy.
Fritz co-chaired the effort with Owen Palm, a major implement dealer in Nebraska’s Panhandle. Its steering committee featured business and community leaders from across the state, and it received input from thousands of Nebraskans.
In 2019, the panel’s report offered myriad ways to grow. They included tax reform, aligning the state education system from pre-K to career, stepped up housing construction and growing key industries, including tech.
But full-scale efforts to make this plan a reality never got off the ground, Slone and others said.
COVID-19 hit, making it harder to move forward and posing its own economic challenges. Slone and Fritz noted progress was made in some areas, including taxes.
A Blueprint follow-up tax study called for cutting income taxes and unpopular property taxes to make the state more competitive while also broadening the state sales tax to assure stable state finances.
The Legislature under governors Ricketts and Pillen moved to significantly cut both income and property taxes, but hasn’t broadened the sales tax.
And after federal COVID relief money vanished, the pain of simply cutting taxes, but not replacing the lost revenue, has become obvious.
The income tax cuts are estimated by the Legislature to have reduced state revenues by more than $800 million in the current fiscal year. And dollars devoted to reducing property taxes have become an ever-growing share of the budget, now amounting to one-sixth of all state spending.
Those are big reasons the state over the last two years has been making hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to state spending — among them tens of millions in cuts to economic development programs intended to help grow the state.
Such cuts have fallen on an internship program aimed at addressing the worker shortage, a national marketing campaign to attract workers, new housing support, business site development funds and a tax credit helping businesses pay for the cost of hiring and relocating out-of-state workers.
“If you look at the facts, you can easily see (economic development) is not a priority,” said Bradford, the former Omaha chamber chair. “Some people are OK with just focusing on property taxes.”
Without a focus on growing the state, he said, Nebraskans’ tax burdens are only going to increase.
An Omaha chamber report in December likewise raised questions about the state’s “posture toward economic development.”
“Economic development efforts statewide have difficulty succeeding,” it read, “when the state is not an integral partner.”
In addition to the tax changes, Blueprint may have contributed to original decisions by the Legislature to boost funding for affordable housing construction.
Fritz also noted that to attract workers, the Blueprint report had recommended Nebraska focus on becoming a more welcoming state. He said that has been undercut by controversial social issues lawmakers have prioritized in recent years.
While the Legislature’s default position for decades was to support tax incentives, Cederberg and others said, in the past decade such programs have faced more pushback. The Legislature at one point struggled to get the votes to reauthorize the state’s main incentive program, now called ImagiNE Nebraska.
Pillen has also been seen by some within the business community as not friendly to incentives. Last year, Pillen said all of Nebraska’s tax credit and relief programs “should be focused on working-class Nebraskans, not Fortune 500 companies.” And the Department of Revenue under his anti-China bill sent letters seeking to retroactively deny businesses incentives they had earned for growing in the state.
But Pillen also introduced and pushed an incentives bill passed by lawmakers in April, one whose main purpose is to lure high-paying jobs in Union Pacific’s proposed merger with Norfolk Southern. It includes other enhancements to the state’s incentives programs and received praise from the Omaha chamber.
The Pillen administration in a statement defended the governor’s record on economic development, saying he has made it a “central priority.”
The statement mentioned numerous Pillen initiatives, including tax cuts, scholarships for high ACT scorers and a new regional economic development strategy launched with the state chamber in 2024.
The administration has acknowledged recent reductions in the Department of Economic Development, defending it as right-sizing the agency after it swelled due to pandemic-era programs.
“Nebraskans are amazing innovators who can outcompete anyone, anywhere,” Pillen said in the statement. “We’re creating a culture that’s primed for long-term economic prosperity by investing in our kids, cutting taxes, boosting value-added agriculture, and giving businesses the freedom to grow.”
Business leaders, though, say there remains much more to be done.
****
During a future-focused meeting in La Vista in late February, the Nebraska chamber brought Blueprint leaders Fritz and Palm back to the stage. Fritz’s message to the hundreds gathered was simple.
“Pick up the ball,” he said.
The gathering kicked off what the Nebraska chamber is calling “Go Big Future,” a plan meant to refocus the state on the growth-centered goals and competitive strategies spinning out of the Blueprint report.
“Some of those things, honestly, if they had been done, we would not see the change we’re seeing in the (job growth) data,” said the chamber’s Williams.
Go Big Future, like Blueprint, will focus on workforce and technology. A third prong: Making sure Nebraska has enough energy to grow — an issue that has risen to prominence since Blueprint.
One of the themes at the Go Big Future kickoff was the need to recognize the challenges the state faces and the effort required to address them.
Nebraska starts with a higher quality of life than most states, Slone said, making him optimistic it can reverse recent job growth trends. But it will take a sustained and broad-based effort.
“This has to be tackled by government, business, philanthropy and community leaders,” Slone said. “Everybody.”
35 Comments
What I find most interesting about articles such as these, is that everyone automatically assumes “economic development” is a good thing and that any lack of it is a serious problem needing to be addressed immediately.
But then when “economic development” does happen, it usually comes in the form of a new Amazon warehouse or giant Chinese data center. Some building that sucks up a lot of space, power, and water, but generates very little in the way of jobs unless you want to be a janitor or a warehouse porter. And we may get an article or two about how this monstrosity is an eyesore or environmental catastrophe waiting to happen, but nobody wants to actually chase it out of town for fear of hurting “economic development.”
I’m going to offer you an alternative way of looking at this problem: What do you NEED to be HAPPY, and does inviting giant out-of-state corporations to lobby your government for tax breaks actually get you what you need?
I agreewith ‘Are you sure about that’
Economic development, is over rated, particularly when taxpayer’s money is used to subsidize corporate developer’s profit, or millionaire developer’s profit. Economic development does little for the rest of us who simply own a home and love the peace and quiet of rural America. The idea that more people and more jobs is always good is BS.
These incentive programs are like an addictive drug to developers. They influence legislators to compete with incentives from neighboring states, (thus ratcheting up any incentive plan) and they won’t do any development without it.
Instead of being a government of the people, this state is now a government by the corporations and millionaires.
You are very correct in being a government by the corporations and millionaires.
Economic Development doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) just attracting big companies to setup tax incentive shelters here. That’s the old strategy.
Economic Development can also look like creating support systems for entrepreneurs and growing businesses that are already here. And to the credit of Nebraska Department of Economic Development, they were *starting* to do a decent job of that in recent years until the uncertainty around the budget cuts.
The programs like the Business Innovation Act are huge steps forward on this front, but instead of being worried that it might get cut again at any moment (which spooks investors), we should be doubling down on it and investing more there. It’s proven to bring back 10x more money for the state than what is spent.
But that doesn’t answer my question, CHeron.
Is “10x more money” what you NEED to be HAPPY?
(And this question might be particularly pertinent if I understood you correctly and it’s “the state” that gets the “10x more money” and not you personally getting it. Because there is a big difference between the government collecting more taxes and you getting any benefit out of that deal.)
Pillen has been a remarkably terrible leader, even by the GOP’s VERY low standards.
True if one reads the FFP.
FFP seems obsessed with tearing down Gov. Pillen. It’s weird.
Just exposing him and what he’s done.
I suppose the author could have studied any number of other indicators, like the “Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index”, that do not support his bias.
But that would require a broad study of the economic situation BEFORE writing the story…. versus having the story, then finding an indicator that supports the story!
Those “controversial social issues” that make the state less welcoming to educated young workers are huge. My own adult children want reliable public transportation, good public education and protected national parks for recreation. They want to know if there’s a pregnancy, the mother’s health takes priority. They also want legalized medical marijuana and to work for an ethical company that values employees more than shareholders.
Legal immigration also is a huge factor. We need to welcome legal immigration to help fill the thousands of unfilled job openings. Our demographics have changed; we don’t have the young people to replace the baby boomers who have left the job market. Studies show immigrants work hard, are involved in less crime than American-born residents and assimilate quicker into American culture than our own immigrant ancestors 100 years ago.
I both agree and disagree with you Jane, probably not for any of the reasons you are hoping for though.
“Controversial social issues” are extremely important to people considering if they want to relocate to Nebraska, as well as to young people considering staying here. Probably these issues are at least equally important as “economic development.” Nobody is going to move here if they can’t find a job here, and being able to find better jobs elsewhere might lure some young people away. But social issues matter an awful lot too and some people won’t consider a state that is completely opposed to their values. This is where we probably agree.
But this is also where we disagree. Your kids seem to want to live in California 2.0, with abortion on demand, overbloated public education and public transportation systems (that they presumably won’t use, since the sort of people who favor these systems often make enough money to opt out of their use). YIKES! That is the complete opposite of what I want, and more importantly what I would want my kids to grow up experiencing. I’m not some uneducated bumpkin either, but I have two bachelor’s degrees, a graduate level certificate and a master’s degree. I moved my entire family here from a more liberal state specifically to get AWAY from those things. Because of Nebraska’s conservative stance on these issues, it gained an entire family of well educated people from out of state.
My story is not an isolated example. Many people are currently fleeing from places like California, Washington, New York and Colorado. The overcrowding, traffic, pollution, illegal immigration and high taxes are sending people in those states running for the exits. If Nebraska had good jobs for these people and offered a CONSERVATIVE alternative to the places they are escaping from, Nebraska could gain many new well-educated and talented citizens from this situation! And yes, that includes young people too, because many members of Gen Z are rejecting the ideas of the Millennials and Baby Boomers by returning to religion and conservative values.
If conservative values aren’t your thing and young people are more concerned about finding a fun night club where they can dance the night away (and get an abortion the next morning), Chicago is right up the road on I-80. You can have everything you want there… but based on recent news out of that town, you might get shot too!
The fact that Nebraska’s political leaders have deliberately failed to enact changes approved by Nebraska’s voters does not help with brain drain.
Really look closely at the charts and see what and how much Nebraska lost during the Ricketts Governorship, 2015 to 2023. and he is elected to be a US Senator. Going back to 2000 to current we have had Republican control Governors and Legislatures, due to people not looking at or caring for, what has been happening.
Obviously there’s no single thing to point to, these things tend to happen due to a ‘bad mix’ of seeds being introduced into a region/society… years later we reap what we sow.
The national tendence to endlessly cater to the incessant whims of the profit hoarders is one part of the bad seed mix.
Another is that people tend to ignore/forget that the wants of youth changes generationally. While the ‘old people’ are in charge and focus on doing things that make sense to them, NOW, and probably made sense in the PAST, they often don’t make things as hospitable/ideal for those coming up in the world who are looking for where to plant their roots.
Youth will generally vacillate towards environs that speak to their generational wants/preferences. You compound that with EDUCATED youth, and they will see little reason to plant seeds in a places that they equate to being a champions of the current political administrations and their arrogant/ignorant/egotistical/isolationist mentality…
Its much easier and more rewarding to just move to a place that already caters to their wants/preferences, than stay here and try plant new seeds and hope they grow to something good in a decade.
Makes sense Andy. Vote with your feet and your wallet by renting a U-Haul.
But I suspect we have very different views on what people actually want and what draws them in.
Certain “young people” are choosing to flee from Nebraska and other conservative states because they think they will do better in a place with more “diversity” and “inclusion.” They can let me know how that works out for them when they read the news articles about things like what happened to Sheridan Gorman.
But there are many people going the opposite direction and fleeing from bad public policy decisions in places like California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. These people didn’t want to pay higher taxes for bigger and less effective government, so they hit the road looking for a more conservative place to live, or at least a place they could be left alone to do what they want. Nebraska could offer these people a place to call home, if we could focus our efforts on having something to bring these people here.
…But we seem to have no problem creating construction jobs for projects like filling in the Leahy Mall, turning Downtown streets into standstill mazes for a streetcar that will solve all our problems and look pretty, and throwing half a billion dollars at a certain stadium. I want leadership that can clearly articulate goals for economic development and long term planning as well as describe how these goals benefit the population. If we learned nothing else from 1987, it’s that corporations have no loyalty: they’ll cut and run no matter what incentives are provided if it benefits them.
Brian drain comes from conservatives like Fritz,, who was fired by UP and doesn’t live in Nebraska any longer . Dana Bradford, who donated to Pillen for governor . And don’t forget the gop Stothert and Pillen in charge of the state and city for the last years
yes
The number of references to the Blueprint Nebraska report is funny…it is loaded with Kansas Experiment group-think that worked so well for Kansans and the GOP politicians who did it–that Kansas has had a democrat governor for years. The Blueprint report says we should do more stuff like the disastrous Francis Ministries stunt (public private partnership). The Blueprint report also laments Nebraska missing out on the very arcane finance speculation that lead to the Great Recession.
All around…people should critically read that report before thinking we should do it.
Nebraska is state that loves to tax everyone. We have very poor roads. We have a state legislature that thinks they know more then the voters. The minimum wage prime example. They cap the cost of living at 1.9% . They do everything they can to discourage people to come live and work in this state. Plus they do everything to chase retires out of this state.
Jane is so, so right! Just ask young people, or try to remember when you were young and ambitious. They want to make their own decisions and they like variety and excitement. Her statements about immigration can be fact checked and found to be true. Anybody who regurgitates the opposite from local or national talking heads is cheating the promise of this state and this country by not doing their homework. They offend less; they mass shoot less; so many of them pay taxes without reaping the full benefits that we do. They draw more attention when they offend just like I would have when I served in the Navy. How many times have you seen a headline like, “Navy man does this or that.”? Thankfully, not that often because the standards to serve are high. But do you ever see, “K-Mart employee runs red light.”? No, of course not. But heaven forbid if an immigrant offends. Immigrants also volunteer and serve alongside us. Anybody who served in the Navy will know the immense contribution that Filipinos have made for decades. They had the sharpest appearance whether at uniform inspections or not; they seldom went to Captain’s Mast; and they all had beautiful English handwriting. Today we do very little handwriting but it tells you how much they cared. Closing the border is one thing to prevent criminal invasion; but not allowing for an orderly screening and admission process does not bode well for our future. And incarcerating or throwing out 70% of those being arrested who have committed no offense is a bad decision. Many of them are here legally, waiting for our terrible and cumbersome system to grant them permanent status.
Honestly stopped reading about 1/2-1/3 way through.
This isn’t anything new. Myself and many other people that have lived and went to college in NE, have left. NE colleges are cheaper alternatives for decent education, but nothing is keeping younger adults in NE besides family. The state isn’t welcoming to certain innovations or groups of people so it’s no surprise that people don’t stay.
NE needs to be more inclusive and stop pushing people who don’t fit away. Furthermore, NE needs to listen to its younger population more and make NE somewhere with interesting or fun things to do. The zoo, cheaper rent, and low wages are not even close to enough to draw people into or convince people to stay in NE.
You want better economic development, Nebraska? Be the first state in the nation to supersede our disfunctional Congress and create a way to make immigrants who have been here for 5 years, legal citizens!
Many of the problems cited in comments originate with the legislature. The current salary of $12,000 eliminates most citizens. We are left with older, financially independent people who sometimes are resistant to new ideas and change. It would be ideal if the members were a cross section of Nebraskans. Senators should be paid a living wage. I am sure that my fellow citizens would return to $12,000 per year if they perceived that the living wage did not bring new solutions and ideas.
I mean, thats a partly valid point. No normal person can survive on $12,000, so of course all of our current legislators are lawyers who are earning money on side gigs when the legislature is out of session. And many of them are the same people over and over again, in spite of efforts to enforce term limits.
Unfortunately, there also isn’t any guarantee that raising the salary will result in anyone different getting elected. It might just result in many of the same people continuing to fight to keep their seat AND collect more money while they are at it.
Thank you for this comprehensive history of efforts. I’m struck by the last sentence that ostensibly includes “Everybody” but obviously leaves out workers. These efforts have always been led by “business leaders”. When I worked with the Chamber long ago, we lost a big company that liked Nebraska but recognized they would have a hard time getting workers to move here. My son was educated by Nebraska (Regents and Scott scholar) but will likely never move back. Why? It’s not all financial. Nebraska is not a cool place to live. We have a governor and Unicameral obsessed with cultural issues that highlight our image as a backward, socially restrictive state. They don’t want to live here. It’s not impossible to change our image – but it has to include real change, not a pithy advertising slogan.
Incentives are good for a short time for big corporations but small business is the backbone of this country. When a big corporation fails,moves out of the state, it takes a lot of jobs. On the other hand the small business continues to struggle for awhile, while stragtizing to be profitable. In the meantime the state keeps piling on more taxes for the small businesses to pay. Don’t mind they come out of our pockets that can’t be spent at another small local business. As a small business owner for 55 years, I also said Dec was pay the man month or you don’t stay in business the next year. Small business gets screwed in nebraska. Now retired, it’s a slim chance I will live out my life inn Nebraska
There is no doubt that as the MAGA movement locks up the governance of Nebraska at all levels, regressive attitudes and policies will erode the quality of life and stifle growth. There is no progress without openness, inclusion and investment. These days, most Nebraskans seem to prefer living in a backwater.
I mean… you describe it as a “backwater,” but you also admit that “most Nebraskans” prefer it that way. Are those people wrong to have their preferences? Maybe they like “backwater” living?
Why should they change their position? Are you offering something better? If your answer is abortion on demand, more money for public schools and making people ride the bus to work (as “Jane” said in another comment), then I doubt you are going to get many people who want that alternative. Most of us will stick with our “backwater,” thank you!
Here is an unpopular idea……get very tough on nonsense in Nebraska. Commit a crime and expect a tough sentence, we will even ship you to another state to serve your sentence if it is cost effective and increases the likelihood you will not return. Make Omaha and Lincoln safe place to live. Deport all of the illegals. Get the citizenry shaped up so we can cut some spending on social programs. Make is a great place to live, work and raise families. Make it a place where business can thrive. Make it a more traditional American city that harkens back to the 192O’s up to the early 7O’s. Let the economic investment and development be driven by the overall landscape of the state and it’s two largest cities.
I agree with your overall principle, Don. But in practice some of those specific ideas could prove harder to implement.
Crime and sentencing are the department of the legislature and the courts, rather than the executive branch. From what I have seen the judges in this state are absolutely awful, but none of them ever get voted out. When you see those options to “retain” judges on your ballot each year, make sure you are voting NO. Sadly most people either vote yes or ignore, because actually researching judges and knowing who to vote out is too difficult for most people.
The executive branch can only carry out the sentence the judge provides. Corrections can decide which prison to put them in, but not how long they stay there, and there is a lot of legislative oversight of things like education, programming, reentry support, etc. Shipping people out of state to private prisons may not be possible, is unlikely to resort in lower costs and won’t prevent the person from being returned to our state upon their release. It may be tough to see why if you haven’t got experience with corrections, but oddly enough it does turn out that doing a better job with programming and reentry is more likely to result in people getting out of prison better and less likely to commit crimes, rather than covered in new tattoos and ready to return to the old gang again.
Deport the illegals? Yes, please! Make sure your elected representatives know you support that position and that they need to continue to support the detention center in McCook and the cooperation with federal law enforcement. By the way, Flatwater should do an article looking at the stats of how many people in prison in Nebraska for sexual offenses involving children also have ICE detainers. Just sayin!
Making Omaha and Lincoln safe? Honestly, I don’t see any way to do that. Maybe we can hope that a lot of the other commenters on this article are correct and all the trouble makers in these cities will move to California because they want legal weed and abortion on demand. Unfortunately, I think they talk a bigger game than they actually plan to follow through with, since many of them aren’t leaving and if you look at the actual statistics of where U-Hauls are going, its AWAY from liberal states, not into them.
In general, I think Nebraska needs to spend less time and money trying to be something other than Nebraska, and invest more effort into leaning in to what it already is. “Nebraska: It’s Not For Everyone” and thats a good thing!
I appreciate the creativity to spin this story. But reading these comments it’s clear the privately funded Flatwater Free Press has clearly become a liberal sounding board for …
– Those who can’t pass their leftist agenda
– Folks who long to live in a blue state but aren’t brave enough to move
– “Educated” elites with a false sense of superiority
– Entities that are on the public dole and worried the trough is running dry
I agree with you Turner, on all but one thing.
Flatwater stories aren’t actually very “creative” at all. I’ve read quite a few of them and they all follow a very predictable pattern:
1. Start with an emotional anecdote about a particular person…
2. Select a few cherry picked facts that seem to support the anecdote…
3. Blame the government for the problem…
4. Strongly suggest without directly saying that somehow MORE government (the same people you blamed for the problem just a moment ago) is the solution to the problem.
This trick might seem creative at first glance, but it’s obvious that it’s being mass produced and every Flatwater writer is being asked to follow some style guide that simply regurgitates this same strategy over and over. What would be truly creative is if Flatwater actually did real investigations, focused on facts instead of emotions, and delivered arguments that aren’t logically fallacious.
A lot of commenters on this article are claiming that “young” and “educated” people are going to evacuate Nebraska because it is too conservative. I read about something very different today that puts this claim in a different light: The “Boom Belt”
The ‘Boom Belt’ refers to 11 southern states (particularly Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee) which large numbers of people are moving into and where the economy is booming as a result. People are fleeing from extremely liberal states like California and New York, to instead move to these very conservative southern states. Tennessee in particular just recently decided that June isn’t “pride month” anymore, but from now on it will be “Nuclear Family Month.”
If conservatism is so terrible and people are so eager to get away from it as some people commenting on this article claim, then why are people in extremely liberal states in such a huge rush to escape to places like Florida and Tennessee where conservatism is trampling the opposition?
Further follow-up to this: The Committee to Unleash Prosperity just released an analysis of IRS data on migration patters, and yup, it is confirmed that people are moving out of blue states, moving into red states and taking a LOT of money, jobs and other assets with them when they leave! Hmmm!