Many Virginians Prefer Training over Incentives

Graphic credit: VCU

The Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs has published a public opinion poll delving into Virginians’ attitudes toward a wide range of issues relating to K-12, higher ed, and workforce training. The poll appears to be methodologically sound. I will use the poll results as stepping stones to address several topics.

Workforce training: When asked how to prioritize the spending of state economic development dollars, according to the poll results shown above, Virginians were evenly split between expanding workforce training and education programs over providing financial incentives to recruit new business or retain existing business.

I construe these results as evidence of potentially strong public support for my proposal, elaborated upon here, to scrap the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Development Fund, which is used to dish out financial incentives to corporations expanding in Virginia, and beefing up the state’s targeted workforce training program. The idea: Instead of attracting corporations with cash, we entice them with a skilled workforce.

As I noted in that column, addressing the jobs-skills mismatch is arguably the greatest economic challenge facing Virginia today. If a corporation can’t find the workers it needs, it won’t consider a community no matter how big the incentives. Furthermore, it makes more sense to invest in Virginia workers than subsidizing out-of-state companies that may or may not be willing to make a long-term commitment to the state.