Since 2006, unemployment has risen by 10 points in Nevada but just one point in North Dakota. Such differences matter deeply for people's lives, and we need to understand the underlying reasons.
The obvious place to look is economic conditions. A Goldman Sachs study in August found that the only factors that mattered were the extent of the housing bubble (more was worse), the size of the state's oil and gas industry (more was better), and the proportion of its workforce in high-skilled professional jobs (higher was better).
My colleagues and I are concerned about civic engagement: voting, volunteering, belonging to and leading groups, attending meetings, and working with fellow citizens to address problems. Those activities are now measured annually by the federal Current Population Survey. So we included them in a statistical model along with major eight economic factors to see what explained changes in unemployment best.
We found that the civic measures were strongly related to changes in employment from 2006-2010, but none of the economic factors was associated with employment to a statistically significant degree. Please see Civic Health and Unemployment: Can Engagement Strengthen the Economy, released today by CIRCLE at Tufts University, the National Conference on Citizenship, the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard, Civic Enterprises, and the National Constitution Center.
In short, the more civic engagement, the less unemployment. Particularly valuable forms of engagement seemed to include volunteering, working with neighbors, group membership, meeting attendance, registering to vote, serving as a group officer, and contacting public officials.
The main focus in the report is on states, but more limited evidence from metropolitan areas finds the same patterns at that level as well.
The report carefully notes that we cannot tell for sure whether civic engagement lowers unemployment; other explanations are explored. However, the statistical relationships are notably strong and deserve much more attention by economists, policymakers, and the public.
The statistical analysis itself cannot explain why civic engagement may be an important factor in avoiding unemployment, but other research lends support for several hypotheses:
As the report concludes:
Even at a time when the global economy has been buffeted by strong and dangerous forces, all communities have capital and skills that can be deployed to create or preserve jobs. Investors may be more willing to create jobs locally if they trust other people and the local government, if they feel attached to their community, if they know about opportunities and can disseminate information efficiently, and if they feel that the local workforce is skilled. All these factors correlate with civic engagement. Those correlations, plus the other evidence cited in this report, lend some plausibility to the thesis that civic health matters for economic resilience.
If we want to boost civic engagement at the state and local level, many strategies are worth considering -- from funding nonprofits to reforming election laws. But civic education at the k-12 level should certainly be part of the strategy, and that was the topic of another major report released this week: Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools.
Follow Peter Levine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/peterlevine
How can you really compare the economy of These two states?
How about the fact that in the years between 2000 and 2010 Nevada grew by about a third, and in that same time period North Dakota population stayed about the same. It was a modern Boom Town based on tourism.
If this Community Spirit is such a good thing then you will not need to ask for Tax Dollars.
When people donate on their own the Non Profits have to be more responsive to the donors questions.
Wow it just hit me, All these Budget Cuts must have some of Goldman Sachs Clients scared they will have to cash in all those Millions in Bonds and Stocks !
I pray they every Non Profit is cut off from getting U.S. Grants and Tax Dollars.
The U.S. Tax Payers should not be building Tennis Centers in Israel or setting up Businesses in other Countries !
Without consumer spending businesses have reduced need for hiring/investment.
The closest direct link the article provides is that "Participation in civil society can develop skills, confidence, and habits that make individuals employable." But what are the skills and habits that people in North Dakota have that people of Nevada lack? And what does employability have to do with getting hired in an economy that has no jobs? Are we to believe that North Dakota has more job openings than California (also at 12% unemployment)?
There are other factors that more strongly suggest why ND has low unemployment. It's a fairly undesirable place to live, cold and with little to see. In fact, it's the least visited state in the country. It also has a very small population, not even 700k, and it has about 8k fewer people than it did in 1930. According to Wikipedia, "one of the major causes of emigration in North Dakota is the lack of skilled jobs for college graduates."
It's a typical small-town economy, in which most of the jobs are low-skill, and since nobody wants to live there, unemployment is low. I think civic engagement lets the people better endure their bitter winters, but I'm not sure it's their key to economic success.