Blueprint Maryland, a non-profit, non-partisan business analysis group, released its first report, "Maryland's Business Climate and Vulnerability to Federal Downsizing" on July 25. The report focuses on potential job losses in Maryland in the wake of proposed federal spending cuts. Also included in the report is an assessment of Maryland's economic climate.
Conducted by the Sage Policy Group, the report presents an inventory of Maryland's assets in terms of education, infrastructure, quality of life, taxation, employment, intellectual capital, and other factors. The inventory aims to identify the relationships between these aspects of life in Maryland and the performance of the state economy.
The study also offers a model of the potential effects on Maryland's economy that could be caused by the proposed 22% reduction in federal spending recently recommended by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The study goes on to examine what impact this reduction could have on the state's employment numbers and the effects that such a reduction in federal spending could have on the state's future economic development.
The report's findings indicate that a 22% reduction in federal spending would potentially cause the loss of nearly 150,000 federally-related jobs statewide. In their model scenario, Blueprint Maryland finds that Maryland's unemployment rate could potentially rise from 6.8 percent to 11.8 percent.
The study recommends that Maryland's focus should be on increasing private sector employment, including encouraging development in the alternative energy industry, a review of Maryland's labor union laws, and retraining programs for Marylanders living in rural areas.
Writer: Amy McNeal
Source: Chevy Weiss, Blueprint Maryland