(INDIANAPOLIS) — Even without a pandemic, Indiana is still playing catch-up to its neighbors in building a skilled workforce.
Every two years, the Indiana Chamber issues a report card on more than 60 benchmarks for Indiana’s economic health. It’s going off-cycle for an update on what it considers the most critical items on the list, with a goal of getting legislators started on thinking about how to address those issues when they return in January.
Chamber vice president Adam Berry says Indiana has built one of the nation’s best business climates in terms of taxes and regulation. But Berry says the state is still struggling to provide enough of a talent base for those businesses. Among Hoosiers who go to college, more than a third earn science or technology degrees. That’s one of the highest rates in the U-S. Just 44-percent of Hoosiers have more than a high school diploma, a lower rate than any of Indiana’s neighbors and the 14th-lowest in the nation.
Berry says it’s still significant progress since the Chamber began the report card eight years ago. The Chamber and the Commission for Higher Education have set a target of getting 60-percent of Hoosiers to earn either a college degree, an associate’s degree or some form of professional credential.
And Berry says Indiana’s health numbers remain “terrible.” Indiana has the fourth-highest smoking rate in the nation, and the 16th-highest obesity rate. The state ranks behind all its neighbors except Kentucky in both categories.
The Chamber has long warned that Hoosiers’ poor health drives up health insurance costs and undoes some of the state’s other efforts to attract businesses. The Chamber’s data place Indiana health insurance premiums in the middle of the pack, about five bucks a month higher than the national average, but lower than either Ohio or Illinois.
Berry says the Chamber’s hopeful the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic won’t prevent legislators from addressing some of those issues. He says Indiana’s strong surplus heading into the pandemic should help the state emerge from the recession faster than others, and turn back to longterm issues.
