Opinion: There’s a better way to solve Alaska’s outmigration problem

I’m aware that articles harping on the shrinking of Alaska’s population are overrepresented in my feed thanks to the algorithm feeding off my interactions, but the overall story of Alaska needing to attract working-age people, 18-64, is a real challenge. The authors writing about solutions are biased toward government solutions and social welfare as the answer to our population woes.

Top-down solutions will only further stunt population growth in Alaska. The Pareto Principle — 20% of actions result in 80% of consequences — illuminates a path forward for growing Alaska’s population. This idea is reflected across the economy where 20% of people — producers — are responsible for the majority of economic output.

As measured by the age group 18-40, there are 110 million Americans. Of those, we only need to attract 10,000 or so producers to give our population the boost everyone desires.

We have no need to attract people from urban centers that require shopping malls and entertainment to move here. We only need to attract the small percentage that seek the benefits only Alaska can offer.

I moved to Alaska in 2020 when I was 30 years old — the prime age for people to build businesses — and dare I say produce babies. The reasons I moved here are straightforward. I lived all over the country, including large urban areas, mid-sized cities and even rural Vermont. No other state offers what Alaska has provided me:

• Lack of an income tax. The ability for me to work as hard as I want and keep the fruits of my labor is mandatory for putting down roots in a place. Time is our most valuable resource and when I spend my time to make a buck, any third party entity that seeks to tax my income is stealing my time. And I can’t make more time.

• Lack of building codes. It’s no surprise that the largest cities in Alaska facing the steepest population decline also have the strictest building codes. Why would anyone purposely move to Alaska to be taxed and told what they can or cannot do with their own property?

• Relatively low cost of land. Raw land in Alaska is still among the lowest-cost options in America. The further from the city, the more affordable land becomes. Many people seeking a self-sufficient lifestyle are drawn to Alaska for this reason alone. We need to increase the amount of land available and increase road access to more of it. There is no reason to encourage high-density living when we can instead fill the landscape with small family homesteads. No other state in the country has access to the rivers, beaches, oceans, lakes and forests that we do. Build more roads, open up more land for development, and watch pioneer-minded individuals move to Alaska.

You’ll notice the most appealing qualities of Alaska are in what it lacks. Do you want a population increase in Alaska? Open up state land for homesteading opportunities and prevent the government from punishing hard-working people. The people we attract to this state will most likely be homeschoolers, homesteaders and self-sufficient, independent people. We have the opportunity to bring back Jeffersonian ideals that will give Alaska a positive population trend.

I am not naive to think the people who rely on taxes in places like Anchorage and Juneau are not terrified of attracting such a population. The self-sufficient family that does not need government to live makes entire swaths of the government superfluous. In my opinion, this is the tragedy that many politicians are seeking to avoid because if too many self-sufficient people move to Alaska, how will we take care of the parasites in government who have no real-world skills?

And so, continue down the road of thinking we need to make Alaska into something it’s not to attract people to move here. Or, advocate for self-sufficient people and open up state land for homesteading opportunities.

Joel Salvino owns and operates a marketing firm based on the Kenai Peninsula, where he’s in the process of building a home and cultivating apples.

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