Economic Developers and the IEDC Data Standards

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Economic Developers and the IEDC Data Standards

• Sarah G. Breshears
• Kristi Barr
• AUBER
• October 14, 2007

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What is MLRA?

• Metro Little Rock Alliance
• An eleven-county economic development
  organization in Central Arkansas representing a
  population of nearly one million.
• Conway, Faulkner, Garland, Grant, Hot Spring,
  Jefferson, Lonoke, Perry, Pulaski, Saline and
  White counties.

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What is MLRA?

• An alliance of economic development professionals
  throughout the region working closely with MLRA
  staff to market the region, identify site
  options, complete proposals and coordinate site
  visits
• Designed to compete with Memphis, Tulsa,
  Nashville, Jackson and other metropolitan regions

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MLRA Region

• Strengths
• Low cost of doing business
• Growing working population
• Universities and Colleges
• Attractive incentives
• Exceptional quality of life
• Successful businesses

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MLRA Region

• Challenges
• Poor perception
• Utilizing and growing pool of tech workers
• Replacing lost jobs
• Lack of entrepreneurial focus
• Mindset on traditional industries

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MLRA Target Industries

• Aerospace
• Automotive
• Biotechnology
• Financial Services
• Information Technology
• Food Processing
• Healthcare
• Logistics and Distribution
• Non Profits
• Tourism

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MLRA Vision

• For Central Arkansas to become recognized as the
  premier location for new and expanding business
  within the mid-south

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MLRA Mission

• Cultivate regional growth and prosperity
  throughout the area by marketing the regions
  strengths and advantages to prospective companies
  and site location consultants for the purpose of
  attracting investment and creating jobs

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Leadership Funding

• Leadership consists of a diverse and dynamic base
  of volunteer business leaders and economic
  development professionals
• Funded through public and private sector support

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MLRA Strategic Plan

• Recognized need for developing a strategic plan
• Identified regional strengths and weaknesses
• Identified targeted industries primary,
  secondary
• Established six working committees

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Six Regional Committees

• Policy Governance
• Land use sites, and infrastructure
• Website / Marketing
• Entrepreneurship
• Quality of life
• Workforce development and education

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MLRA Website Marketing

• Pooling our collective financial resources to
  market the region.
• Make the website our primary marketing tool to
  site location consultants.
• Make the website the primary location to get data
  within our region.

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MLRA Website Marketing

• Committee selected to use the IEDC Data Standards
  as the basis for collecting and displaying data
  on the website for each of the 11 counties.
• Sub-contracted with the University of Arkansas at
  Little Rocks Institute for Economic Advancement
  to oversee and administer all data gathering.

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What are the IEDC standards?

• International Economic Development Council (IEDC)
  
• Task force developed data set to improve site
  selection process for communities
• Released in May 2000
• Two purposes
• Provide critical information for site selectors
• Help economic developers understand community
  better

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What are the IEDC standards?

• Set of 25 tables, covering major topics
• Demographics
• Labor force employment
• Education
• Payrolls and salaries
• Workers Comp
• Transportation
• Taxes
• Utilities
• Quality of life
• Available sites

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The IEDC data standards

• Data comes from
• 2/3 public sources (secondary information)
• 1/3 private or local sources (primary
  information)
• Problems with the data
• Not everything available for an area
• Local definitions may be different
• Critical data for you may be missing
• Not user-friendly
• Problems with some sources

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The IEDC Data Standards

• To better utilize the standards
• Decide whats important to you
• Rearrange the tables
• Eliminate duplications
• Add information
• Make data tables user-friendly
• Provide for data maintenance and upkeep

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Understanding and using your data

• Know your community-region-state-universe
• Identify your customers/competitors
• Talk to leaders of institutions that impact your
  economic and community development efforts
• Network
• Make data collection meaningful

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Understanding and using your data

• Know your professions data and its peculiarities
• Common data sources
• Common data terms
• Emerging trends
• What consultants want

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Understanding your data needs

• Areas to focus initial efforts on
• Workforce
• Current demographics
• Available buildings and sites
• Infrastructure
• Business cost data
• Data to have at your fingertips
• Existing industry data
• Performance data
• Quality of life data
• Traditional local information

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Demographics
• U. S. Census Bureau
• Labor force information
• BLS
• Department of Workforce Services
• Workforce Investment Boards
• Higher education
• State higher education department
• Local colleges and universities

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Vocational-technical
• Workforce Investment Boards
• State education departments (including Vocational
  Education)
• Local schools
• Other training programs
• Payrolls salaries by industry and occupation
• State labor departments
• County Business Patterns

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Workers compensation unemployment insurance
• State workers compensation board
• State workforce services department
• Transportation
• State departments of highways and transportation
• Airports
• Railroads
• River ports
• Taxes
• State finance agency
• City and county tax offices
• State Assessment Coordination Departments

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Water and sewer availability
• Local water departments
• Local wastewater departments
• State regulatory departments for water and
  wastewater
• Other utilities
• Local electric departments
• Local gas utility
• Local telephone and wireless companies

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Quality of life
• Housing
• U. S. Census Bureau
• Local real estate professionals
• Residential taxes
• City and county governments
• Climate
• U.S. Weather Bureau

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Public sources for IEDC data

• Quality of life
• K-12 education
• State departments of education
• Local school districts
• Health care
• State health agencies
• County and state medical associations
• Local hospitals
• Sports and cultural amenities
• Local venues
• State and local tourism offices

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Use primary local data sources for

• Leading employers
• New and expanding industries
• Military bases and installations
• Research and development centers
• Labor-management relations
• Local wages by occupation
• Business parks
• Available industrial sites

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Incorporating the Data into the Website
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Incorporating the Data into the Website
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Incorporating the Data into the Website
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Incorporating the Data into the Website

• Difficulties
• Excel spreadsheets are hard to maintain
• Data standards ask for data that may not be
  available for your State or county
• Data standards dont ask for some relevant,
  easily updatable data
• County information, depending on county size, may
  not all be available at the same time

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How we changed the standards

• We modified the Excel spreadsheets in some
  instances to reflect information available for
  our region.
• We eliminated all tables relating to available
  buildings or sites and instead used an
  interactive, web-based search option with GIS
  mapping.

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How we changed the standards
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How we changed the standards
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How we changed the standards
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How we changed the standards

• We added an interactive, customized demographics
  section allowing consultants to select only the
  demographics they want.

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How we changed the standards
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How we changed the standards
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What were moving to now

• Eliminating the Excel spreadsheets as a database
  to maintain
• Creating one database with less, more relevant
  information
• That database will display similarly to the
  customized portion just previewed
• In addition to the .pdf export option we will
  add an Excel export option

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New Format

• Income data
• Population data
• Labor Force data
• Military data
• Education
• Salary Information

• Transportation
• Utilities
• Government
• Healthcare
• Climate
• Taxes
• Incentives

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The new format will allow us to

• Take the portions of the data standards that
  apply to our region
• Ignore the portions that dont apply
• Reduce the number of NAs appearing in our data
• Update data without worrying about formatting
• Update data in just one location

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• How IEA works with Economic Developers

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Secondary Data

• People data
• Describes your community
• Characteristics of the population within a
  community
• Allows for comparisons between communities
• Economic data
• Describes the economy of an area
• Industrial composition
• Measures outputs from various industries

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Why do you need data?

• To know as much about your community as possible
• To be able to answer any questions from
• Residents
• Local businesses
• Governments
• Potential businesses
• Potential tourists
• Site locators

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What data should you collect?

• Dependent upon
• Speed how fast do you need data?
• Cost how much do you have to spend?
• Accuracy how accurate must your data be?

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Where to find answers about people?

• American FactFinder factfinder.census.gov
• Decennial census
• American Community Survey
• Population estimates

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Census of Population and Housing

• Years ending in 0
• Short questionnaire goes to 100 of all
  households
• Population
• Age
• Sex
• Race
• Relationship to householder
• Housing tenure (own or rent)

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Census of Population and Housing

• 2010 Census
• Short-form questionnaire will be it
• Same questions
• Counts used to reapportion U.S. House of
  Representatives
• States use to redraw Legislative districts, city
  wards, and county governmental districts

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Census of Population and Housing

• Census 2000 and prior censuses
• Long questionnaire went to a sample of households
  (prior to 2010)
• Nationwide, 1 in 6 households
• Characteristics
• Demographic
• Social
• Economic
• Housing

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Changes for 2010

• Long form questionnaire replaced by the American
  Community Survey (ACS)
• Same type of data
• Different type of survey
• Annual estimates
• Currently for geographic areas over 65,000
• 3-year moving average for areas between 20,000
  and 65,000 (available 2008)
• 5-year moving averages for areas under 20,000
  (available 2010)

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The American Community Survey

• Monthly survey mailed to about 3 million
  households annually, but only 2 million actually
  respond
• Over a 5-year period, 10-12 million households
  will be surveyed
• Census long-form sample was 16 million
• Same household wont be surveyed more than once
  in five years individuals or families may

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The American Community Survey

• Benefits of the ACS
• Timelinessproducts come 8-10 months following
  completion
• Frequencyannual estimates, ability to track
  trends
• Higher quality of data due to completeness of
  responses
• (Interviewers trained professionals)
• Weakness of the ACS large margins of error,
  especially for small areas

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The American Community Survey

• Benefits of the ACS
• Timelinessproducts come 8-10 months following
  completion
• Frequencyannual estimates, ability to track
  trends
• Higher quality of data due to completeness of
  responses
• (Interviewers trained professionals)
• Weakness of the ACS large margins of error,
  especially for small areas

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The American Community Survey

• Estimates are period estimates
• Estimates over 3- and 5-year periods will be
  adjusted for inflation
• Multi-year estimates will require care when
  analyzing trends

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ACS vs. Census

• ACS a video, Census a snapshot
• ACS is a monthly survey, Census taken on April 1
• ACS provides characteristics of the population,
  Census provides counts
• ACS will be annual estimates, Census was once
  every 10 years

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Differences in definitions

• Place of residence
• Seasonality of population
• Income
• Poverty
• Employment status

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Understanding the ACS

• ACS provides an estimates from a sample survey
  (not a full count like the Census)
• ACS also provides the margin of error expressed
  as plus or minus a number

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How to use the ACS data

• Understanding margins of error
• Finding the range of the estimate
• Comparing estimates for different areas

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Using the ACS

• U.S. Census Bureau recommends paying close
  attention to the margins or error
• Compute each when comparing two or more areas or
  in combining items to obtain a sum
• Show tables and graphs as percent distributions
  rather than numbers
• Rememberthese estimates from ACS are not counts

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Reality of ACS

• Try to tell a governmental official that these
  are not counts of their jurisdiction
• Try to explain to an official or site selector
  that he must compute the margin of error and
  determine if the estimates are statistically
  significant when comparing his city to a
  neighboring city

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Reality of ACS

• Three different estimates for a city or county
  over 65,000
• Annual
• 3-year moving average (2008)
• 5-year moving average (2010)
• Counties wont sum to the states
• Cant mix the three types of estimates
• County populations will be adjusted to population
  estimates

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Population Estimates and Projections

• Population estimates
• Total population estimates available annually for
  states, counties, and all incorporated places
• Population by age, race, sex, and Hispanic origin
  available annually for states and counties
• Prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau
• ACS will be adjusted to county estimates

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Population Estimates and Projections

• Population projections
• Usually done at least once a decade
• 5-year age cohorts
• Age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin
• 2005-2030, latest for Arkansas
• Usually prepared by the state-level Federal-State
  Cooperative for Population Projections

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Where do you find answers to questions about the
economy?

• U. S. Census Bureau
• Economic Censuses
• County Business Patterns
• U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
• U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Economic CensusesThe source of industry data

• Economic Census
• Years ending in 2 and 7
• Detailed industry and product lines
• Broad geographic availability
• Provides
• number of establishments
• annual payroll
• paid employees
• some measure of economic activity (sales,
  receipts, revenue, value of products sold, etc.)

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Economic Censuses

• North American Industry Classification System
  (NAICS)
• Used for the first time with the 1997 Economic
  Censuses
• Provided about 1,200 detailed U. S. Industry
  classifications
• Over 350 new industries and approximately 400
  revised industries
• 9 new service sectors
• Manufacturing restructured to recognize new
  high-tech industries

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NAICS

• 9 categories of Service Industries
• Professional, scientific, and technical services
• Management of companies and enterprises
• Administrative support waste management
  remediation services
• Educational services
• Health care and social assistance
• Arts, entertainment, and recreation
• Accommodation and food services
• Other services, except public administration
• Public administration

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Whats available from Economic Censuses?

• Industry series
• Product lines
• State-level data for many industries
• Metro data for selected industries
• Subject series
• E-commerce statistics
• New for 2002
• Economy-wide, 3-digit NAICS
• Sales via Internet
• State data

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Whats available from Economic Censuses?

• Geographic area series (state, metros, county,
  city)
• Zip code statistics
• Establishment counts by size
• Selected sectors only
• Non-employer statistics
• Businesses without any paid employees
• 70 of businesses
• 3.5 of sales

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County Business Patterns

• Annually
• Total number of establishments
• Mid-March employment
• First quarter and annual payrolls
• Number of employees by 9 employment-size
  categories
• No sales or receipts
• Detailed NAICS industry codes
• County and state level
• Usually a complete listing of all industries in a
  county

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Bureau of Economic Analysis The source for
income data

• National income and product accounts
• International statistics
• Industry statistics
• State and local area personal income estimates
  (REIS)
• Counties
• Metropolitan and micropolitan areas
• BEA economic areas
• Gross state product (GSP)
• Regional input-output modeling system (RIMS)
• Regional economic multipliers
• User-defined areas available for a fee

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Bureau of Economic Analysis

• For local areas
• Personal Income Estimates
• Per Capita Personal Income
• Gross state product (GSP)
• Regional input-output modeling system

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Bureau of Economic Analysis

• Whats available from BEA?
• Quarterly estimates of state personal income
• Annual estimates of state personal income
• Annual estimates of county-level industries
• Annual estimates of county-level personal income

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Bureau of Economic Analysis

• Also available on an annual basis for states and
  counties
• Compensation of employees by industry
• Full-time and part-time employment by industry
• BEARFACTS--Regional economic narrative profiles
• Personal current transfer receipts
• Farm income and expenses

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Bureau of Labor StatisticsThe source for
employment data

• Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
• Formerly the ES-202 reports
• A quarterly count of employment and wages
  reported by 8 million employers
• Covers 98 percent of U.S. jobs
• Available at the county, MSA, state and national
  levels by industry
• Firms subject to State unemployment insurance
  (UI) laws
• Federal agencies subject to the Unemployment
  Compensation for Federal Employees

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Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
• Counts reflect number of filled jobs, full-time
  and part-time
• Individuals who hold two jobs would be
  double-counted
• Excludes self-employed

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Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Number of people employed
• Wages paid to the employees each quarter
• Location, industrial activity, and industrial
  classification of each establishment
• An economic unit, such as a farm, mine, factory,
  or store, that produces goods or provides
  services
• An employer can have one or more establishments
• Typically located at a single physical location
• Engaged in one, or predominantly one, type of
  economic activity

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Secondary Data from Governmental Sources

• Reputable sources
• Usually governmental agencies produce unique data
  for broad geographic areas
• Easy to obtainreadily available
• Federal agency data comparable across state lines
• Most data available on Internet
• Cheap

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Other secondary data sources

• State partners with federal agencies
• U.S. Census Bureau
• State Data Centers
• Located in each state
• Good place to call firstpoint of reference to
  other state sources
• Many work with other data sets
• Federal-State Cooperatives for Population
  Estimates and Projections

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Other secondary data sources

• State partners with federal agencies
• Bureau of Economic Analysis
• User Groups, usually located in universities and
  state agencies
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Departments of Workforce Services, Bureaus of
  Labor Statistics Programs

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Other secondary data sources

• Libraries
• Colleges and universities
• EDA university centers
• Private/nonprofit organizations
• Newspapers
• Trade associations
• Private research firms
• Internetsearch engines and search directories

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And just to remind you

• A computer cannot turn bad data into good data.
  (John R Pierce)
• Get your facts first, then you can distort them
  as you please. (Mark Twain)
• I always find that statistics are hard to
  swallow and impossible to digest.  The only one I
  can ever remember is that if all the people who
  go to sleep in church were laid end to end they
  would be a lot more comfortable.  Mrs. Robert
  A. Taft

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Economic Developers and the IEDC Data Standards

• Questions?