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In this talk today,
I want to present a different idea

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for why investing
in early childhood education

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makes sense as a public investment.

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It's a different idea, because usually,

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when people talk about
early childhood programs,

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they talk about all the wonderful
benefits for participants

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in terms of former participants,
in preschool,

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they have better K-12 test scores,

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better adult earnings.

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Now that's all very important,

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but what I want to talk about
is what preschool does

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for state economies

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and for promoting
state economic development.

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And that's actually crucial

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because if we're going
to get increased investment

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in early childhood programs,

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we need to interest
state governments in this.

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The federal government
has a lot on its plate,

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and state governments
are going to have to step up.

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So we have to appeal to them,

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the legislators in the state government,

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and turn to something they understand,

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that they have to promote
the economic development

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of their state economy.

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Now, by promoting economic development,

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I don't mean anything magical.

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All I mean is, is that
early childhood education

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can bring more and better jobs to a state

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and can thereby promote
higher per capita earnings

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for the state's residents.

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Now, I think it's fair to say
that when people think about

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state and local economic development,

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they don't generally think
first about what they're doing

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about childcare
and early childhood programs.

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I know this. I've spent most of my career
researching these programs.

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I've talked to a lot of directors

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of state economic development agencies
about these issues,

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a lot of legislators about these issues.

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When legislators and others think
about economic development,

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what they first of all think
about are business tax incentives,

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property tax abatements,
job creation tax credits,

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you know, there are a million
of these programs all over the place.

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So for example,
states compete very vigorously

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to attract new auto plants
or expanded auto plants.

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They hand out all kinds
of business tax breaks.

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Now, those programs can make sense

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if they in fact induce
new location decisions,

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and the way they can make sense is,

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by creating more and better jobs,

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they raise employment rates, raise
per capita earnings of state residents.

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So there is a benefit to state residents

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that corresponds to the costs
that they're paying

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by paying for these business tax breaks.

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My argument is essentially
that early childhood programs

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can do exactly the same thing,

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create more and better jobs,
but in a different way.

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It's a somewhat more indirect way.

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These programs can promote
more and better jobs by,

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you build it, you invest
in high-quality preschool,

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it develops the skills
of your local workforce

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if enough of them stick
around, and, in turn,

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that higher-quality local workforce

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will be a key driver of creating jobs

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and creating higher earnings per capita
in the local community.

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Now, let me turn to some numbers on this.

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Okay. If you look
at the research evidence -

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that's extensive - on how much
early childhood programs

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affect the educational attainment,
wages and skills

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of former participants
in preschool as adults,

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you take those known effects,

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you take how many of those folks
will be expected

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to stick around the state or local economy
and not move out,

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and you take research on how much
skills drive job creation,

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you will conclude,

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from these three separate
lines of research,

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that for every dollar invested
in early childhood programs,

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the per capita earnings of state residents

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go up by two dollars and 78 cents,

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so that's a three-to-one return.

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Now you can get much higher returns,

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of up to 16-to-one,
if you include anti-crime benefits,

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if you include benefits
to former preschool participants

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who move to some other state,

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but there's a good reason
for focusing on these three dollars

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because this is salient and important

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to state legislators
and state policy makers,

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and it's the states
that are going to have to act.

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So there is this key benefit
that is relevant

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to state policy makers in terms
of economic development.

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Now, one objection you often hear,

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or maybe you don't hear it because
people are too polite to say it, is,

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why should I pay more taxes

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to invest in other people's children?

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What's in it for me?

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And the trouble with that objection,

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it reflects a total misunderstanding

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of how much local economies

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involve everyone being interdependent.

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Specifically, the interdependency here is,

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is that there are huge spillovers
of skills -

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that when other people's children
get more skills,

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that actually increases
the prosperity of everyone,

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including people
whose skills don't change.

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So for example, numerous
research studies have shown

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if you look at what really drives

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the growth rate of metropolitan areas,

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it's not so much low taxes,
low cost, low wages;

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it's the skills of the area.

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Particularly, the proxy for skills

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that people use is percentage
of college graduates in the area.

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So when you look, for example,
at metropolitan areas

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such as the Boston area,
Minneapolis-St. Paul,

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Silicon Valley, these areas
are not doing well economically

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because they're low-cost.

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I don't know if you ever tried
to buy a house in Silicon Valley.

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It's not exactly a low-cost proposition.

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They are growing because they have
high levels of skills.

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So when we invest
in other people's children,

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and build up those skills,
we increase the overall job growth

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of a metro area.

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As another example, if we look

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at what determines an individual's wages,

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and we do statistical exploration of that,
what determines wages,

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we know that the individual's wages
will depend, in part,

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on that individual's education,

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for example whether or not
they have a college degree.

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One of the very interesting facts
is that, in addition,

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we find that even once
we hold constant, statistically,

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the effect of your own education,

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the education of everyone else
in your metropolitan area

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also affects your wages.

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So specifically, if you hold constant
your education,

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you stick in percentage of college
graduates in your metro area,

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you will find that has a significant
positive effect on your wages

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without changing your education at all.

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In fact, this effect is so strong

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that when someone gets a college degree,

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the spillover effects of this on the wages

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of others in the metropolitan area

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are actually greater
than the direct effects.

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So if someone gets a college degree,
their lifetime earnings

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go up by a huge amount,
over 700,000 dollars.

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There's an effect on everyone else
in the metro area

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of driving up the percentage of college
graduates in the metro area,

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and if you add that up -
it's a small effect for each person,

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but if you add that up across
all the people in the metro area,

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you actually get that the increase
in wages for everyone else

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in the metropolitan area
adds up to almost a million dollars.

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That's actually greater
than the direct benefits

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of the person choosing to get education.

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Now, what's going on here?

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What can explain these huge
spillover effects of education?

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Well, let's think about it this way.

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I can be the most skilled person
in the world,

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but if everyone else
at my firm lacks skills,

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my employer is going
to find it more difficult

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to introduce new technology,
new production techniques.

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So as a result, my employer
is going to be less productive.

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They will not be able to afford
to pay me as good wages.

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Even if everyone at my firm
has good skills,

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if the workers at the suppliers to my firm

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do not have good skills,

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my firm is going to be less competitive

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competing in national
and international markets.

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And again, the firm
that's less competitive

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will not be able to pay as good wages,

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and then, particularly
in high-tech businesses,

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they're constantly stealing ideas
and workers from other businesses.

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So clearly the productivity
of firms in Silicon Valley

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has a lot to do with the skills
not only of the workers at their firm,

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but the workers at all the other
firms in the metro area.

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So as a result, if we can invest
in other people's children

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through preschool and other
early childhood programs

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that are high-quality,
we not only help those children,

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we help everyone in the metropolitan area

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gain in wages and we'll have
the metropolitan area

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gain in job growth.

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Another objection you sometimes hear

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to invest in early childhood programs

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is concern about people moving out.

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So, you know, maybe
Ohio's thinking about investing

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in more preschool education

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for children in Columbus, Ohio,

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but they're worried that these
little Buckeyes will,

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for some strange reason,
decide to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan,

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and become Wolverines.

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And maybe Michigan
will be thinking about investing

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in preschool in Ann Arbor, Michigan,
and be worried

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these little Wolverines will end up
moving to Ohio and becoming Buckeyes.

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And so they'll both under invest
because everyone's going to move out.

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Well, the reality is,
if you look at the data,

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Americans aren't as hyper-mobile
as people sometimes assume.

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The data is that over 60 percent
of Americans

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spend most of their working careers

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in the state they were born in,
over 60 percent.

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That percentage does not vary much
from state to state.

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It doesn't vary much
with the state's economy,

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whether it's depressed or booming,

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it doesn't vary much over time.

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So the reality is, if you invest in kids,

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they will stay.

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Or at least, enough of them will stay

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that it will pay off
for your state economy.

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Okay, so to sum up,
there is a lot of research evidence

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that early childhood programs,
if run in a high-quality way,

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pay off in higher adult skills.

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There's a lot of research evidence

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that those folks will stick around
the state economy,

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and there's a lot of evidence
that having more workers

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with higher skills in your local economy

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pays off in higher wages and job growth
for your local economy,

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and if you calculate
the numbers for each dollar,

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we get about three dollars back

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in benefits for the state economy.

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So in my opinion,
the research evidence is compelling

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and the logic of this is compelling.

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So what are the barriers
to getting it done?

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Well, one obvious barrier is cost.

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So if you look at what it would cost

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if every state government invested

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in universal preschool at age four,
full-day preschool at age four,

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the total annual national cost
would be roughly

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30 billion dollars.

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So, 30 billion dollars is a lot of money.

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On the other hand, if you reflect on

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that the U.S.'s population
is over 300 million,

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we're talking about an amount of money

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that amounts to 100 dollars per capita.

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Okay? A hundred dollars
per capita, per person,

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is something that any state government
can afford to do.

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It's just a simple matter
of political will to do it.

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And, of course, as I mentioned,

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this cost has corresponding benefits.

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I mentioned there's a multiplier
of about three,

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2.78, for the state economy,

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in terms of over 80 billion
in extra earnings.

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And if we want to translate that
from just billions of dollars

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to something that might mean something,

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what we're talking about is that,
for the average low-income kid,

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that would increase earnings
by about 10 percent

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over their whole career,
just doing the preschool,

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not improving K-12
or anything else after that,

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not doing anything
with college tuition or access,

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just directly improving preschool,

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and we would get
five percent higher earnings

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for middle-class kids.

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So this is an investment

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that pays off in very concrete terms

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for a broad range of income groups
in the state's population

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00:13:02,249 --> 00:13:05,451
and produces large and tangible benefits.

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Now, that's one barrier.

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I actually think the more profound barrier

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is the long-term nature of the benefits
from early childhood programs.

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So the argument I'm making
is, is that we're increasing

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the quality of our local workforce,

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and thereby increasing
economic development.

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Obviously if we have a preschool
with four-year-olds,

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we're not sending these kids out
at age five

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to work in the sweatshops, right?

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At least I hope not.

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So we're talking about an investment

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that in terms of impacts
on the state economy

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00:13:39,486 --> 00:13:43,251
is not going to really pay off
for 15 or 20 years,

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and of course America
is notorious for being

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a short term-oriented society.

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Now one response you can make to this,

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and I sometimes have done this in talks,

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is people can talk about,
there are benefits for these programs

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in reducing special ed
and remedial education costs,

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there are benefits,
parents care about preschool,

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maybe we'll get some migration effects

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from parents seeking good preschool,

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and I think those are true,

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but in some sense
they're missing the point.

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Ultimately, this is something

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we're investing in now for the future.

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And so what I want to leave you with

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is what I think is the ultimate question.

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I mean, I'm an economist,
but this is ultimately

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not an economic question,

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it's a moral question:

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Are we willing, as Americans,

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are we as a society still capable

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of making the political
choice to sacrifice now

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by paying more taxes

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in order to improve the long-term future

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of not only our kids, but our community?

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Are we still capable of that as a country?

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And that's something
that each and every citizen

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and voter needs to ask themselves.

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Is that something that you
are still invested in,

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that you still believe
in the notion of investment?

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That is the notion of investment.

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You sacrifice now for a return later.

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So I think the research evidence

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on the benefits
of early childhood programs

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for the local economy is extremely strong.

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However, the moral and political choice

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is still up to us,
as citizens and as voters.

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Thank you very much.
(Applause)