More than 70 cities and towns across America have implemented incentive programs aimed at drawing businesses and remote workers away from Silicon Valley and other coastal hubs, and are enjoying increased success since the pandemic, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The incentives include subsidies for gym memberships and childcare, as well as direct cash payments for workers who want to make the move.
Among the largest such programs in the country is the effort to entice tech workers to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Tulsa Remote, the biggest of these programs by the number of people it has brought in, has a distinct advantage over most: It’s funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in and focused on Tulsa, which spent $181 million on a variety of initiatives in 2020 alone. Almost all of America’s comparable programs must be paid out of local economic-development budgets.
By the end of 2021, Tulsa Remote had brought 1,360 people to the city. By the end of 2022, the total could be more than 2,400.
Another example is Greensburg, Indiana:
One way he’s atypical, however, is that as a newly minted resident of Greensburg, the Indiana town with around 12,000 people, he’s the only Amazon engineer in what he estimates is a 30 mile radius, at least. His basket of incentives to move to his new home included $5,000 from the city, a year of free office space, gym membership and babysitting for his children, ages 1 and 3.
While some companies have embraced remote working, others have not. In June, Elon Musk declared that workers at Tesla were required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week. “If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned,” said Musk.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.
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