Indiana Chamber launches new economic roadmap
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The Indiana Chamber of Commerce this week unveiled the third iteration of its effort to drive economic momentum throughout the state. “Indiana Prosperity 2035 – A Vision for Economic Acceleration” was developed by a volunteer task force over an 18 month period and identifies nearly three dozen goals across six pillars that the chamber wants to achieve over the next decade-plus.
“[This] is more than an update. It’s a new vision and an acceleration to push Indiana’s economy to even greater heights,” said Chamber CEO Kevin Brinegar. “Achieving the goals in the plan will benefit all Hoosiers, both businesses and citizens alike.”
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Brinegar said the pandemic led to the chamber ramping up the development of a new visioning plan before the current one ends.
“We started this in the summer and fall of 2020,” he said. “We didn’t even have any vaccines yet, and so we didn’t know how long, how deep the pandemic was going to be and how much disruption there was going to be. So we felt like it was time to pivot, begin to chart a new course, to help Indiana be as competitive as we could possibly be coming out of the pandemic, because a lot of the dynamics and the parameters have changed.”
The six pillars outlined in the plan are workforce; K-12 education; economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurship; superior infrastructure and energy; quality of place strategies; and healthy, prosperous communities and citizens.
Brinegar told IIB while a few of the goals have remained the same as in past plans, most of them are new.
When it comes to workforce, he said the state has made great strides in working toward its previous goal of having 60% of working adults possessing a college degree or industry-recognized credential; Indiana currently sits at 54%.
In the new plan, the chamber is raising that goal to 70%, which is also the new target for the state’s labor force participation rate.
“We’ve got too many folks sitting on the sidelines, who are of working age, not in there,” he said. “We want to see our workforce participation rate go from 63% to 70%. That would allow us to fill all the open jobs that we have. In order to do that, we’ve got to lift up the skills of our high school dropouts and even our high school graduates because barely 50% of them participate in the workforce.”
Infrastructure was another key issue for Brinegar, who said wants to see 100% internet connectivity throughout the state. He added a need for continued investment in water and wastewater infrastructure, especially as the state plans for more mega-sites such as the LEAP Innovation and Research District in Boone County.
“We’re actually updating a study that we did and 2014, showing the areas where there will be water needs to in order to facilitate economic growth,” he said. “We’ve seen some issues related to water with respect to the LEAP District. We also saw it when Honda came into Greensburg, and the city didn’t necessarily have an adequate water supply and had to make some adjustments there.”
The goals of the new plan were finalized late last year, but the chamber didn’t want the plan to get overshadowed by this year’s legislative session. However, Brinegar said the Legislature made strides toward achieving some of the goals, such as a requirement for high school students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, as well as enrollment in the state’s 21st Century Scholars program.
“We have one of the lowest FAFSA filing rates in the country and the lowest in the Midwest, and that will boost that and help lower-income families find out what they’re eligible for and see that there is an opportunity to pay for postsecondary education training.”
Brinegar added the expanded toolkit for the Indiana Economic Development Corp. to attract more business to the state and the approval of a second round of the Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative, or READI, will also help the state accomplish the plan’s goals.
You can connect to the full 20-page plan by clicking here.
Brinegar said the chamber will offer to sit with each of Indiana’s gubernatorial candidates and go through the plan and invite them to make as much of the plan as they’d like part of their campaign platform and, if they win, their work agenda.