Each dollar spent drawing remote workers to Tulsa delivers $4 benefit to current residents

Woman works on laptop on patio with man

As the remote-work boom increasingly let people work from anywhere, cities and regions seized upon a new economic development strategy: attract workers to their borders without needing to lure their employers. More than 100 communities now pay remote workers to move there.

Many such programs sprang up quickly, with little research on whether their benefits to local residents would outweigh the costs of attracting remote workers. Now, the most thorough study of its kind finds that one large worker attraction program, Tulsa Remote, handily passes this test. 

The program’s benefits to other Tulsa residents are worth more than four times its costs, Upjohn Institute Senior Economist Tim Bartik finds in a new report, “The Effects of Tulsa Remote on Inducing Moves to Tulsa: Estimates and Implications.”

Snip from graphical explainer showing a $4.31 ROI for each dollar invested in Tulsa Remote

Tulsa Remote pays selected workers $10,000 to move to Tulsa and stay for at least one year. The program screens applicants, giving preference to high-salary tech workers, and provides extensive support services to integrate workers and their families into the community and encourage them to start new businesses.  

Key to the overall benefits, Bartik finds, is that Tulsa Remote attracts workers who would not have moved there otherwise: 58 to 70 percent wouldn’t have come without the incentive. That’s a high success rate compared to other economic development tools, such as business tax incentives. A business tax incentive of the same cost per job as Tulsa Remote would only entice 6 percent of businesses to build or expand in Tulsa that wouldn’t have done so otherwise. 

Bartik’s calculations show Tulsa Remote to be six times more efficient at creating jobs – with a cost of $36,000 per job it brings to Tulsa – than typical business incentives’ $218,000 cost per job created. He attributes the difference to remote workers’ mobility – they can settle anywhere with broadband – while businesses have more barriers to uprooting. 

Model considers many factors to see how program affects residents' quality of life

More than 3,000 workers who have joined Tulsa Remote obviously gain from the program, but how does it affect existing residents when those new arrivals need homes for their families, teachers for their children, and other public services? Bartik uses a regional econometric model of his own design that captures these and other complexities to determine holistically how the program affects people’s living standards. 

“I focus on issues of ‘Did this improve anyone’s well-being by increasing their income compared to what it otherwise would be?’” Bartik said. “Ultimately, if a local community is considering a remote worker attraction program, voters will want to know what such a program might mean for their standard of living. Are the original local residents better off?”

He finds that the new Tulsa Remote workers make existing residents better off in several ways. They spend more at local retailers, which creates local jobs. They attract high-tech companies or create their own, opening jobs for other Tulsa residents. And they increase the local tax base by more than they use in services, allowing local governments to cut taxes or expand services. 

Tulsa Remote increases property values, which benefits property owners but also increases local prices and business costs, which tends to drive away other local businesses. Higher rents also reduce the real incomes of households on fixed incomes. 

However, the Tulsa housing market responds well to increased population, providing more housing to accommodate the newcomers without large increases in local housing prices. As a result, the effects of higher housing prices only slightly offset Tulsa Remote’s job creation and fiscal benefits. But in communities where zoning and other barriers make housing hard to build, the net effect of a remote worker attraction program could be quite different. 

While Tulsa Remote isn’t designed to reduce income inequality, Bartik finds that the program is moderately progressive, in that a greater share of benefits go to the bottom 60 percent of households, by income, than their initial share of overall income. The program’s benefits are broad-based, Bartik finds, with benefits outweighing costs at least 3 to 1 for all income groups. 

Economic development efforts can benefit from people-oriented strategies

Other communities can take lessons from Tulsa Remote, but each has different resources, Bartik said. Tulsa Remote started with significant private funding, from the George Kaiser Family Foundation, and great timing: it launched full-scale in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic opened remote-work options for millions of people. 

Tulsa has had success establishing itself as a hub for tech jobs, and it’s not clear how effective a less-targeted program, or one targeted to workers in a different industries, would be. But communities should consider people-oriented economic development strategies, designed to increase the number of skilled workers, alongside business-oriented strategies such as tax incentives and customized business services, Bartik said. 

“People-oriented strategies could include well-run remote worker attraction programs, such as Tulsa Remote, which not only attract remote workers, but also successfully integrate them into the local community.” 

Experts

Timothy J. Bartik headshot

Timothy J. Bartik

Senior Economist

Date: May 20, 2025