Certain states are taking matters into their own hands to focus on new ways to address the challenges that are damaging their economic climate. Here, Brookings Institute shares five different innovative programs governors across the country have introduced.
Voters across the country elected hundreds of new state officials last November, including 20 new governors. With these new governors now sworn into office, the early public actions of many indicate that issues of economic innovation and inclusion will be key policy priorities in their first terms.
On economic innovation, digital technologies are changing the skills workers use each day, upending industries, and reshaping the ways that we communicate, travel, learn, and live. Accordingly, forward-looking governors have unveiled plans to transform state government operations using data and technology and to equip residents with the digital skills they need.
At the same time, those innovation dynamics are creating pressing economic inclusion challenges. Income growth has slowed for lower- and middle-class workers yet risen quickly for affluent ones; racial wealth disparities have widened; and entire regions of the country have been left behind, as our Brookings colleagues recently documented. As a result, more governors are placing issues of economic inclusion at the center of policy and budget decision-making.
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