Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Initiative to Increase Tax Base by Paying Remote Workers to Relocate Proves Successful

A woman using a laptop on a dining room table set up as a remote office to work from home, in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2020. (Joe Giddens/PA)

A Tulsa, Oklahoma, initiative to increase its tax base by offering $10,000 for the relocation of remote workers to the city has—five years later—proven successful, according to a financial report (pdf).

Justin Harlan, managing director of Tulsa Remote, said the program was implemented to “reverse the ‘brain drain’ from small and mid-sized cities.”

“Tulsa, with a metro area of about one million people, has an aging population with an economy dominated by oil and gas extraction (a volatile industry in the best of times) and manufacturing,” Harlan said. “Like many midsize heartland cities, Tulsa has been overlooked by the knowledge economy sector of high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs, which are concentrated in coastal enclaves.”

Tulsa Remote was launched in 2018 and its novel approach raised eyebrows.

Aaron Renn, cofounder and senior fellow of the American Reformer—an organization that advocates for Christian values in cultural institutions—said he’s shifted his position on relocation incentives.

“I originally thought it sounded desperate—and is, candidly—but programs like Tulsa Remote and Ascend WC have done well,” Renn said. “Targeted, philanthropically funded programs seem to work decently, from what I can tell.”

Like Tulsa Remote, the Ascend West Virginia program pays $12,000 to relocate to the mountains.

Rochester, New York, offers the most at $19,000, according to Route Fifty, while smaller cities like Ketchikan, Alaska, and Bemidji, Minnesota, offer free WiFi.

‘Repaid Many Times Over’

According to the report, as of December 2022, 2,164 members relocated, generating $306.7 million in direct employment income.

In 2022, 1,852 recruits living in the city contributed over $203 million in new labor income and brought in a new sales tax revenue of $2.5 million for Tulsa County and $3.1 million for the state.

Members generated over $150,937 of labor income, the report stated, which is 12 times the amount Tulsa Remote paid into the program.

According to Harlan, the Tulsa Remote program—a joint effort with the Tulsa-based George Kaiser Family Foundation—has “repaid many times over to the city and state through tax revenues and multiplier effects.”

“But the benefits extend far beyond financial scorecards,” Harlan said. “The 1,852 Remote members living in Tulsa as of 2022 are contributing to the city’s cultural and recreational attractions, including live music, fine restaurants and extensive public parks.”

According to a Brookings Institution report on the program, the loss of workers migrating to larger cities has a detrimental impact on the local economies, while those who have left their hometown communities face a high cost and separation from their communities.

“In this context, the rapid rise of flexible ‘work-from-anywhere’ (WFA) employment arrangements, where companies allow workers to relocate and live at the locations preferred by workers, has the potential to mitigate this problem,” Brookings states. “If, indeed, WFA were to become a mainstream policy across multiple organizations, smaller towns might see a flow of workers who are able to work remotely migrating from larger cities.”

Those employees moving to smaller cities would see income gains while reconnecting to a sense of community, Brookings says in its report.

The report dates the recruitment initiative back to the ‘90s, but it faced the problem of not having enough job opportunities as well as a below-average number of “knowledge-intensive firms” and college graduates.

70,000 Applicants

Based on the latest U.S. Census data, Tulsa has a population of 411,401, with a median household income of $49,474, and a per capita income of $31,753, according to Brookings.

“In 2020, Tulsa registered 31.3% of persons aged 25 years or older as having a bachelor’s degree or higher,” the report states.

In comparison, the report states that New York City has a median household income of $67,046, a per capita income of $41,625, with 39.1 percent of the population aged 25 years or older having a bachelor’s degree.

By 2021, Tulsa Remote has received over 20,000 applications when combining 2019 and 2020 and had invited up to 2,700 applicants, ultimately relocating 763 remote workers.

The Brookings Report survey of Tulsa remote workers found that employees saw a $26,500 increase in their income.

Shift in Work Environments Opens Door

According to The Wall Street Journal, 71 cities have launched relocation programs since the start of the pandemic, which itself created a 9 percent increase in remote workers.

According to a 2021 study of the program, 88 percent of the program’s first participants were college graduates with an income of $105,000.

To date, there have been 70,000 applicants.

An applicant must agree to move to the city within a year and demonstrate community engagement through volunteer activities.

Like many post-2020 community initiatives, the program included a statistic on race, pointing out that non-white applicants make up over 48 percent of the finalists who accepted offers to move.

The Tulsa Remote Economic Impact Report stated that after earning the $10,000 stipend at the end of the year, the employees are free to leave, but 76 percent stayed.

“We certainly didn’t have expectations that it would go this fast when we set out to launch this thing,” Harlan said. “But I think the shift in the work environments that people are experiencing across the country has certainly opened up this door.”