Adhering to the old adage that demographics are destiny, the ADN editorial board’s Aug. 10 missive (“With Alaska’s population forecast to decline, can we avoid economic disaster?”), offered a bleak vision of Alaska’s economic future. It drew comparisons to the slow decay of the American “Rust Belt” and Alaska’s earlier experience with mining-inspired population boom-and-bust cycles to issue a plea for pragmatic political interventions in housing, child care and fiscal policy. Before jumping to solutions, however, we need to ask whether shrinking population is the right way to define the problem we are looking to solve.
The U.S. as a whole is forecast to grow between now and 2050 at a rather anemic rate of 0.5% per year, with the segment aged over 65 growing most the quickly. Expecting Alaska to buck this trend and out-compete for working- aged talent is unrealistic.
Instead of focusing on growing our numbers, perhaps we shift our emphasis to growing our per-capita productivity. That is, attracting higher-skill and high-value-added industries and embracing technology to either lessen the need for labor in other industries, like construction, where labor is scarce nationwide.
Instead of accepting the bleak portrayal of Alaskans as the inheritors of a boom-and-bust resource-based economy, let’s recall that Alaska is home to some of the earliest archeological evidence of human settlement in North America. Resilient and resourceful people have lived here — in small numbers — for a very long time.
— Kim McGinnis
Assistant professor of business administration, UAF
Fairbanks
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