Gain insights into Florida’s future economic trends with Florida TaxWatch’s latest report. Analyze projections on population trends, job growth, GDP, and the tourism sector’s influence. This essential guide offers a strategic outlook crucial for anyone involved in Florida’s economic planning or investment.
Amidst a national shift towards a cooler labor market with fewer job openings, the study explores the consequent effects on wage trends and inflationary pressures. The focus is on Florida’s unique position and its adaptive response to these economic headwinds, highlighting the state’s labor market resilience. As job openings decline and employee separations remain high, Florida’s experience offers a case study in managing workforce challenges during economic cooldowns. This paper is a must-read for policymakers, economists, and business leaders interested in the interplay between labor markets and inflation, especially those focused on the Sunshine State’s economic climate.
As Florida continues to grow, we must ensure that our state remains affordable for people to live, work, and play. Florida’s current population boom saw the state increase its population by nearly 15 percent between 2010 and 2020. The state added a little less than three million residents in under a decade. Florida is currently the fastest growing state in the nation, and we should increase our housing stock to meet these population pressures.
Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, Florida TaxWatch (FTW) released Florida’s Certificate of Need Program Delivers High Quality Hospice Care, a report emphasizing the value and recommending the continuation of Florida’s hospice Certificate of Need (CON) program. The program, which is intended to increase statewide access to hospice care, allows for the addition of providers only if an area’s growth rate suggests there will be an unmet need – as determined by a population-based formula – for those services.
Two main drivers of Florida’s economy are tourism and real estate development. With an estimated 1,000 people moving to Florida every day, real estate development puts a strain on public facilities (e.g., roads, water and wastewater system, etc.) and services (e.g., police, fire protection, parks, etc.). Local governments rely on impact fees to generate the money necessary to accommodate the impacts of new development on existing public facilities and services.
On Wednesday, August 31, Florida TaxWatch hosted a webinar “Demographic Data for Businesses & the Census” to discuss Florida’s population undercount in the 2020 Census, the impact this has on the business community, and efforts to secure more accurate data. During our webinar, we were joined by Mary Jo Hoeksema, Co-director of the Census Project; Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Founder and Director of Census Legacies; Susan Racher, Vice President and CFO of Wallace H. Coulter Foundation; and Ashley Dietz, President and CEO of Florida Philanthropic Network.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Today, Florida TaxWatch (FTW) released Florida Workforce Update, a commentary on the shifts in Florida’s workforce since the COVID-19 pandemic. It outlines the status of remote work, women in the labor force, and the “Great Resignation,” a term coined in May 2021 to describe unusually high quit rates, or the number of employees leaving a job by their own volition as a percentage of total employment. Quit rates typically have an inverse relationship with unemployment levels, as these employees are not leaving the workforce, but rather transitioning from one job to another, often a better job.
A robust economy is a staple for securing high tax revenue and boosting the well-being of taxpayers. Although Florida’s economy enjoys a strong rebound with historically low unemployment, the dynamic of its workforce has changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, shuffling where opportunities lie and surfacing new challenges.
Just as the nation was entering a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic—one where vaccination rates were rising and pent-up demand for travel started to unleash during the summer—the contagious delta variant exposed tourism’s lingering economic vulnerability.
The 2020 Census is finally over, capping off a historic effort to accurately count every person in the United States during a pandemic. A few interesting stories emerge from the latest enumeration of the nation, such as the growing population shift to the South and New York losing a congressional House seat by only 89 people. Although Florida was one of the so-called “winners” in the current census because it secured an additional seat in Congress, the result was not as spectacular as expected.
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