Poverty a concern for Arizona’s long-term economic security

Arizona’s economic forecast looks good for 2017, but there is a disparity in prosperity that is a concern for economists and the state’s governor.

“The headline statistics on the Arizona economy are very strong,” said Lee McPheters, Research Professor of Economics at Arizona State’s WP Carey School of Business.

Arizona is a top-10 state for private sector job and population growth, which he noted in ASU’s annual forecast for 2017, yet at the same time, the state is bottom-10 in categories such as per-capita personal income and poverty rate.

“Over the long-term, we need to emphasize education and training,” he explained. “And try to improve indicators and measures of prosperity, rather than just looking at job growth all by itself.”

The state needs to look at policy, professor McPheters added, otherwise that disparity could create long-term structural issues for our economy.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey expressed that disparity is a concern for him too.

“We do what we do, because we want to see people on the first rung of the economic ladder move along and move up,” he said.

Ducey added that’s why his focus has been on properly funding education and growing the economy.

“When you have people that have the skills, have productive employment and take on more responsibility, that’s the best way to build an economy,” he said.

So when a child spends 12 years in our public school system, he added, they have some skills that they can either take on to higher-education or JTED’s (Joint-Technical-Education-District).

“We also want to make sure that we have a properly funded safety net,” Ducey said. “For our most our vulnerable, and those that are in need.”

“So we’ve been able to do all that to a certain degree,” he said. “But as the economy grows, it gives us more options, it gives us more resources in which we can make better decisions.”

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