Help wanted, needed, filling the worker shortage

How the COVID pandemic is changing Minnesotans' shared lives will be hashed and rehashed for years. But here's a helping of analysis that I can serve with confidence right now:

The "jobs, jobs, jobs" era in state policy has ended. Minnesota's economic policy imperative is now "workers, workers, workers" — and the sooner state pols grasp that change, the better will be Minnesotans' prospects.

"Jobs, jobs, jobs" has had a long and strong run as a guide to state policy since the late Gov. Rudy Perpich made it his comeback mantra 40 years ago. Both political parties came out of the scary 1981-82 recession, with its 10% Minnesota unemployment rate, convinced that state government should provide employers with tax relief in general and job-creation incentives in particular.

But by his third and final term, Perpich himself had a new slogan: Minnesota should be known as "the brainpower state." When Perpich made that shift, he was prophetic, St. John's/St. Ben's economics Prof. Louis Johnston says.

"Rudy was right about the brainpower state," Johnston told me recently. "It's something we have to emphasize today much more than jobs, jobs, jobs."

The Minnesota-focused economics professor holds that today's crazy-low state unemployment rate, 3.1% in December, is no short-term blip. Neither is the surge in job vacancies, which hit a record 205,000 in 2021. A labor shortage has long been forecast for this decade, coinciding with baby boomer retirements.

That expected demographic trough's impact on Minnesota has been lately exacerbated in a couple of ways. One: Immigration dropped during the Trump years. Two: The pandemic's stressors pushed people out of the workforce, leading to the lowest workforce participation rates in Minnesota since the 1970s.

Who got stressed? People in historically female-dominated occupations — health care, education, hospitality, service industries. Who dropped out of the labor force in disproportionate numbers? The parents — particularly the mothers — of young children.

"Minnesota should be focusing on making it easier for people to stay in the workforce when they have children," Johnston said. The state also desperately needs to close its infamous gap in educational attainment between white and nonwhite children, he said, noting the rapid growth in Minnesota's nonwhite population.

Hmm. What could state government do this year that would both boost the workforce of today and build the workforce of tomorrow?

The answer has been obvious for some time: Invest in early childhood education — er, "early care and learning," the label preferred by St. Paul DFL Rep. Dave Pinto, chair of the state House Early Childhood Finance and Policy Committee.

Pinto's nomenclature is important. One of the impediments to substantial investment in young children in this state has been split thinking about child care, which has been deemed a benefit for parents, and preschool, seen as good for children. State policy ought to reflect the reality that the two are inseparable. Families — and Minnesota — need both.

"All of Minnesota's early care and learning programs are deeply underfunded," Pinto told me recently. "There's so much focus on what we do in K-12. But the learning gaps start well before age 5, and when they exist before age 5, they are super hard to close. I want us to recognize that the most important time for development and learning are the first few years of life."

A year ago, pre-K appeared poised for a breakthrough legislative session. But come June, divided government and divided thinking about care and learning led to disappointment for advocates of both care and learning for small children. One-time, mostly federal money flowed to child care providers, but new permanent state money was stingy.

With the $7.7 billion budget surplus of their dreams to divvy up this year, legislators have a chance to do better by the 31,000 small Minnesotans who, by one estimate, still lack access to quality care and learning.

While they are at it, they should also get serious about getting the governance right. State efforts to serve young children are split among several state agencies, which means they are most likely less efficient, accessible and accountable than they should be. Pinto wants to change that by creating a new state agency, the Department of Early Childhood. It's an idea that deserves a hard look.

To be sure, making quality care and learning opportunities more available to more youngsters isn't the only way to invest in human capital. Johnston mentioned another: making it easier for all Minnesota teens and young adults to access the postsecondary education that best suits their needs and abilities.

Think "workers, workers, workers," and ideas like that rise to the top of legislative priority lists. Stay in the old "jobs, jobs, jobs" mind-set, and tax cuts take precedence. Tax cuts vs. investments in human capital — writ large, that's the story line for the 2022 Legislature, and for Minnesota's future success.

Lori Sturdevant is a retired Star Tribune editorial writer. She is at lsturdevant@startribune.com.