Florida has a way to go before it realizes its true economic potential, according to the current Tough Choices report released Thursday by the LeRoy Collins Institute.
Tougher Choices: Shaping Florida’s Future examined the past to make a number of predictions in a variety of areas — state revenues, demographics, the Florida Retirement System, K-12 education, higher education and infrastructure.
Economists from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research authored the most recent update of the LCI-produced Tough Choices series.
Tougher Choices expands on the findings of the original 2005 Tough Choices report, which concluded Florida is not on track to realize its full economic potential.
“Almost 10 years ago, the LeRoy Collins Institute published Tough Choices: Shaping Florida’s Future,” LCI director and report co-author Dr. Carol Weissert, a political science professor at Florida State University.
Researchers analyzed Florida’s revenue and spending trends, discovering that although Florida has “boundless economic potential,” tough decisions remain.
“This report revisits these concerns and, unfortunately, finds that Florida has made little progress in addressing the key issues outlined in our initial report,” Weissert added. “We hope this new report will help to further illustrate the challenges facing the state and inspire appropriate reforms.”
Key findings in the areas of education, health care, infrastructure, retirement and more:
- Across the spectrum, Florida’s education system is struggling– from K-12 through higher education. Public schools funding lags behind other regions and Florida’s young workers are less likely to have a college degree than peers are in other states.
- The state’s reliance on retirees and tourists comes at a price; demands of older residents and vacationers link disproportionately to lower-paid service jobs. Making matters worse is growing Medicaid demands from Baby Boomer retirements, as well as labor market polarization that will likely require greater Florida expenditures in the near future.
- Florida’s transportation congestion, especially in urban areas, ranks among the worst in the nation. There is a distinct lack of proper roads to manage its growing population, compounded by an aging infrastructure and congested highways.
“Twenty-five years ago Florida was closing in on building a diversified economy that could attract high-skill jobs, and modest continued investment might have gotten us there, said report co-author Jim Dewey, Director of Economic Analysis for BEBR.
“Now, we have fallen far behind, and the investment needed to close the gap is huge,” Dewey added. “Providing great vacations and comfortable golden years for retirees can provide a happy enough life for many Floridians. But, we could have done better. Perhaps we still can, but the cost will be much higher.”
With the release of Tougher Choices, LCI seeks launch a public conversation on Florida’s future.
“Though recovery from the Great Recession is near at last, Florida now faces even tougher challenges than in 2005,” said report co-author David Denslow, a Research Economist at BEBR. “By highlighting structural trends and data-driven interpretative comparisons with other states, the LeRoy Collins Institute will help citizens make their own judgments about how their state can meet these challenges and what direction it should choose.”
The report can be viewed online at http://fla.st/1jRY6gK . For more information about the Tough Choices series and others published by the LeRoy Collins Institute, visit www.collinsinstitute.fsu.edu.
