ISER Research Matters No. 7, Economic Projections of the Southern Railbelt
November 8, 2004

Alaska's population and employment are likely to grow an average of 1 to 1.5 percent a year over the next 25 years. (See Figure 1.) At that pace, Alaska's population would grow from about 650,000 today to 940,000 by 2030. The number of wage and salary jobs would grow to nearly 400,000—an increase of about 100,000 from the current level. (See Table 1.)

 

That projected growth is similar to growth in the 1990s—which was much slower than in the oil development boom of the 1970s and 1980s, but more consistent with growth nationwide. Alaska's economy will continue adjusting to declining North Slope oil production; to the shift of more jobs to lower-wage service industries; to the aging of baby boomers out of the work force; and to other factors.

The Mat-Su Borough will grow three times faster than the statewide average. By 2030 it will have more than twice the people and jobs it has today. (See Figure 2.) That rapid growth will continue the pattern of the 1990s, when more people working in Anchorage chose to live in the borough, and the borough also captured an increasing share of jobs in the combined Anchorage and Mat-Su region.

These are ISER's new base case projections for Alaska and the southern railbelt, prepared by Scott Goldsmith, who is ISER's director and a professor of economics. The study also includes a set of sensitivity analyses, showing how changes in individual factors—like growth in the number of retirees or construction of a Knik Arm crossing—would change the projections of future growth.

Full report

 

Research Matters No. 6, Kids Count Alaska data book
October 13, 2004

ISER's new Kids Count Alaska Data Book provides the good and the bad news about how Alaska's children and teenagers are doing. It's sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and it reports, among other things:

A third of the children treated for mental health problems in recent years were sent outside Alaska.
A 2002 report by UAA's Comprehensive and Specialized Evaluation Services looked at about 1,900 children and teenagers in Medicaid-funded programs in 2000 and 2001 and found that roughly 640 were sent to out-of-state facilities.

Nearly half the Alaska children without health insurance come from families not considered poor.
The Population Reference Bureau reports that in Alaska, as is true across the country,   many families earn too much to qualify for government-funded coverage but can't afford private insurance.

Alaska high-school students are only about half as likely to smoke or use inhalants now as in the 1990s.
That's from the 2003 Alaska Youth Risk Behavior Survey, carried out by   the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services.

Aside from other family characteristics, simply being poor puts children at high risk of failing in school.
That's what nationwide research shows, and the results of the 2004 Alaska High-School Graduation Qualifying Exam support it: just 46 percent of sophomores from low-income families passed reading and math, compared with nearly 70 percent among all students.

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More than half of all Alaska Natives may live in urban areas by 2020. If current rates of migration from rural to urban places continue, the share of Natives living in urban areas will grow from the current 42 percent to 53 percent. Native population growth has been fastest in urban areas for the past 30 years, boosted by an estimated 27,000 Natives moving from rural to urban areas.

Alaska Natives are still about three times more likely than other Alaskans to be unemployed and poor. That's despite jobs gains in every decade since 1960, especially among Native women. The number of new jobs didn't keep pace with the number of Natives moving into the labor force.

Young adults will be the fastest growing part of the Native population in the next decade, sharply increasing demand for jobs. Alaska Natives are a young people, with a third of the population age 14 or younger in 2000. That means thousands of young Natives will move into the labor force in the coming years, increasing demand for jobs by more than 35 percent by 2020. This growing job demand will come at a time when Alaska's economic growth is likely to be slower than in the past.

Tens of thousands more Alaska Natives are graduating from high school and attending college, but their educational attainment still lags that of other Alaskans. In 2000, nearly 75 percent of Natives over 18 held high-school diplomas, up very sharply from past levels but still lagging the 90 percent of non-Natives with diplomas. The gap in four-year college degrees is even larger. Among Alaskans 25 or older, 6 percent of Natives hold four-year degrees, compared with 25 percent of non-Natives.

Illnesses caused or aggravated by poor living conditions among Alaska Natives have been reduced or eliminated, but other types of health problems have increased. Big improvements in village sanitation, housing, and health care since the 1970s mean that Natives are living longer and fewer babies are dying. But Natives today die from heart disease and cancer more often than other Alaskans, and rates of diabetes among Natives doubled between 1985 and 1999.

Research Matters No. 4
March 18, 2004

Building a law school in Alaska today isn't feasible. Still, there are other ways the state could help Alaskans get a legal education. A new report by Mary Killorin of ISER finds that there wouldn't be enough students to sustain an Alaska law school and that the number of jobs for lawyers in Alaska won't increase much over the next decade. But the state could help residents by offering a grant program for those attending law school elsewhere and by working with law schools to offer more summer programs and externships in Alaska. Click here to read the full report.

How much energy is produced in Alaska and how is it used? Scott Goldsmith of ISER has created a graphic display of how much energy from oil, gas, and other resources Alaska produces, how much is exported, and how the rest is used within the state. That graphic is part of a recent report on electric power in Alaska, the first comprehensive look at electric power in the state since 1995. Click here to see the energy flow graphic or read the full report here.

Judges in Alaska are generally fair in sentencing—but the legal system is often harder on minorities and people who can't afford private attorneys. An ISER analysis of Alaska felony arrests in 1999—done by Matthew Berman and Stephanie Martin for the Alaska Judicial Council—looked at what happens before defendants go to court and what happens at sentencing. After taking into account all the factors you'd expect to influence sentencing (like the severity of the crime), the researchers found no systematic disparity in sentencing based on race. However, for drug crimes, Black and Native defendants appear to get longer sentences. For most felonies, defendants with private attorneys tend to get shorter sentences. The big exception is felony drunk driving, where virtually all defendants get similar sentences. Men tend to get longer sentences than women. Also, minorities and people who can't hire private attorneys end up spending more time in jail before their cases are decided—and because they're in jail, the charges against them are less likely to be reduced. As a result, they tend to be convicted of more serious crimes, which carry longer sentences.
Executive summary.
The full report can be found on the judicial council's site.

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Research Matters No. 3
February 19, 2004  

Prudhoe Bay oil so far has been worth seven times more than all the gold, copper, furs, and salmon taken out of Alaska before statehood. That's value of production, adjusted for inflation. But a new paper by Terrence Cole, a professor of history at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, argues that the huge size of Prudhoe Bay has blinded Alaskans to the reality that oil fields, like gold mines, don't last forever. Read the summary here or go here to see the full paper.

For more than half of Alaska households, paying income taxes would be cheaper than giving up part of their Permanent Fund dividends. That's assuming either measure raised the same amount for state government. Learn about that and other fiscal facts in a new presentation developed by Sharman Haley, associate professor of public policy at ISER, to help Alaskans understand fiscal issues.

An ISER analysis questions the accuracy of a new "cost of education" index prepared by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). AIR developed the index for the state legislature to use in allocating state education money to school districts. But in reviewing the index, Bradford Tuck, professor of economics at ISER, found problems with the way AIR estimated several important school costs. Read more here.

Research Matters No. 2
November 21, 2003

How much does Alaska's economy depend on federal money? A lot, according to a new ISER study of how the federal government spends its money in Alaska and how patterns and levels of federal spending have changed since the 1980s.

• One in three jobs in Alaska—about 96,000—depend on current federal spending of $7.6 billion annually. Of those jobs, about 38,000 are military or federal civilian jobs. The other 58,000 are jobs in private industry and state and local government.

• Grants grew the fastest. By 2002, federal grants of $3.1 billion in Alaska just about equaled federal spending for military and civilian operations combined.

• As much as $2 billion of the $7.6 billion the federal government spends here annually could be at risk in the future, as the federal government faces its own budget problems. But national interests in Alaska guarantee that federal spending will remain a big part of Alaska's economy.

Full report or 4-page summary

Why Economic Development Doesn't Pay—Except for oil, no industry in Alaska pays its own way. A new natural resource job, for instance, costs the state $1,100. Why? Because economic development requires new public services—and under Alaska's current tax structure, households and businesses generally don't pay enough taxes to cover the costs of those services.

Job Losses from Closing the Fiscal Gap—Closing the state fiscal gap will cost Alaska jobs, because it will take money out of the economy. But using budget cuts alone would cost Alaska the most jobs— 18,500—while an income tax would cost the fewest, about 7,500. A sales tax or a PF dividend cut would eliminate about 9,300 jobs.

The Alaska Citizen's Guide to the Budget—This Web site offers a wealth of information on these and many other topics of interest to Alaskans concerned about the state budget.

 

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