By
NICK GOSNELLHutch
Post
HUTCHINSON — Jeremy Hill, the director of the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University, is positive about the state's economy going forward.
"It kind of came up to three categories, how are households doing and they're doing fantastic," Hill said. "Businesses, how are they doing? They're complaining, having a lot of issues because the market has changed, but the fundamentals are still good, they are seeing demand grow, just really not reaching where they want and then on the government side, this is a very different environment. Home prices are up, which is going to be good for them. Retail sales are up and overall population was fairly decent for the overall state and for the region. The region declined, but in recent years, it's been improving again."
Finding good people is the problem, especially locally.
"We are tighter than the U.S. on this labor market," Hill said. "Just in Reno County, it's at 3%, but up in McPherson County, it's at 1%. We're talking about really low. Everyone's engaged. If we want to grow, we need to start really being aggressive right now, before the U.S. gets back to their full employment, bringing people in."
How do you do that, as a business owner?
"The biggest issue for the entire state and this is not just rural, this is rural, urban, across the state, is wages," Hill said. "Unlike the U.S., we are already back to full employment and even unlike our regional states right around us, we went back to full employment. If you want to get labor and labor is the biggest issue, increase wages. I tell the story all the time, we keep that gap between the U.S. and Kansas and all their markets continue to get broader and broader. That's why we had outmigration just a few years ago. The opportunities for households were better somewhere else, so they got up and left. It didn't mean we didn't have jobs. We just weren't competitive."
Hill noted that there are some areas where Kansas has a cost of living advantage, but that doesn't necessarily overcome lower aggregate wages, unless moving from a major metropolitan area. Eighty-seven percent of cities have below-average costs of living across the country. The richest 13 percent of cities drive up that average.