Reg Murphy Pubs Archive

Polling and Winning on the Margins

Written by Heather Farley on November 13, 2024. Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

We are closing the door on the 2024 Presidential election and, once again, polls and the media fell short in predicting the outcome. Since Donald Trump entered politics in 2016, polls have often underestimated his support, and 2024 was no exception.

There is a popular narrative that this is because both the polls and the media are biased toward Democrats. While media bias can be a valid issue, I propose an alternative explanation grounded in polling limitations and the dynamics of this year’s race.

As a social scientist, I have spent a fair amount of time analyzing methods and biases in research and when it comes to researching humans, there is definitely room for error.

You likely noticed in the many Presidential candidate polls that came out over the last sixth months or so, that there is a margin of error listed. This margin of error tells us how much the poll results might vary if the survey were conducted multiple times. It’s shown as a percentage and gives an idea of the uncertainty in the poll’s results. So, if the margin of error were ±3%, we could assume that either candidate could go up to three percentage points higher or lower than the reported number. A “good margin of error” is at or below ±3%. When polls approach ±5%, it is considered too high to draw useful conclusions. In 2024, however, the race was considered so close, particularly in the swing states, that the polling was effectively useless. In other words, with both parties polling a percentage point or so higher or lower than their opponent, margins of 3% didn’t give us much indication of what to expect.

Likewise, the outcome of the election was on the margins. Indeed, Trump swept the swing states because he picked up the one or two percentage points, and sometimes even less, needed to win the electoral college votes in key states. The surprise, I think, was that he earned the margins in almost every case leading to a sweep.

Was this a failure of poll legitimacy? Not necessarily. Leading polls did not exhibit faulty methods or embedded biases. Instead, human factors limited data reliability.

Good data requires good sampling. Sampling in this case can be tricky. Republicans are less likely to engage with media or polling due to distrust, leading to underrepresentation. Conversely, Democrats, particularly college-educated ones, often engage more, skewing data representation.

So where can we turn in future elections to help us predict what might be coming? One new tool released by the Washington Post this year caught my eye and I hoped it might be useful – not in predicting outcomes but levels of support. The tool showed candidates’ online donor counts by zip code, offering insights into grassroots support. In Glynn County, for example, Trump had only 7% more donors than Harris but secured a 26-point lead, demonstrating that donor counts, while indicative of enthusiasm, aren’t great predictors. Not in Glynn County at least.

An interesting, if not controversial, place one might turn for consistently accurate prediction is betting markets. In this election cycle, several prediction betting companies turned out to be successful in accurately predicting the eventual outcome. Companies such as Kalshi and Polymarket put the odds of winning the election in Trump’s favor earlier and more consistently due to the numbers of bets they were receiving. Free market purists may not be surprised by this.

These markets are not scientific in any way and come with potential problems (eg. foreign participation, financial incentive to work against certain election outcomes, low governance and regulation of these platforms). But, when people put money into something, there’s no lying or virtue-signaling to mislead the messaging. In a historical look at Presidential betting markets, Economics researcher, Koleman Strumpf highlights that cutting out the human pitfalls and looking just at the numbers has proven to be remarkably accurate and efficient.

I still believe in the legitimacy and validity of polling. In many cases polling is an excellent tool. When it comes to Donald Trump, or any candidate who can divide the nation so narrowly, I’m not so sure. This season has convinced me to look to the markets for clues as well.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Business and Public Administration and Associate Professor of Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies and an environmental policy scholar. The opinions found in this article do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

The Economics of Mass Deportation

Written by Don Mathews on October 23, 2024. Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

[Note: I prefer not to bicker over the terms, illegal immigrant and undocumented immigrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refers to a person in violation of U.S. immigration law as a noncitizen. I will, too.]

Best estimates put the population of U.S. noncitizens at roughly 11 million. 8.3 million noncitizens constitute 5% of the U.S. labor force. A proposal to deport all 11 million in one or a few fell swoops is on the table. Let’s consider the economics of mass deportation.

First, the direct costs of deporting 11 million noncitizens. Each one must be caught, arrested, detained, legally processed and removed. The branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tasked with catching, arresting, detaining and removing is Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). ERO consists of 7,600 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel. It deployed 1,300 of its workers to the Southwest border for much of FY 2023. Even so, ERO made 170,590 arrests of noncitizens in FY 2023. It has the capacity to detain up to 30,000 people at any given time. On average, a noncitizen is detained for 37.5 days while their case is legally processed. Legal processing is handled by the Office of Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA). OPLA consists of 1,750 attorneys and support staff, which leaves it understaffed by 667. Nevertheless, ERO removed 142,580 noncitizens to more than 180 countries in FY2023.

One wonders what it would cost to build and operate the hundreds of additional detention facilities, and hire, train and pay the tens of thousands of additional ERO and OPLA personnel necessary to make mass deportation viable.

Next, the indirect costs. The working, spending, tax paying, investing and entrepreneurship of noncitizens generates $1 trillion a year in real GDP and $100 billion a year in federal, state and local taxes paid. Deporting the 11 million would mean deporting $1 trillion a year in production and $100 billion a year in tax revenues each and every year they’re gone.

Deporting the 11 million would also destroy jobs for U.S. born workers, perhaps as many as 730,400. The figure comes from a 2023 study on the labor market effects of U.S. deportations in 2005-2014. The study finds that for every 500,000 noncitizen workers deported in 2005-2014, 44,000 U.S. born workers lost their jobs. The reason is clear. Many noncitizens will do jobs U.S. born workers won’t. The jobs are vital to production: if they can be filled, a business is launched. The business fills other jobs with U.S. born workers. Remove the vital workers, the business shuts down.

The 8.3 million noncitizens in the U.S. labor force are heavily concentrated in agriculture, food processing, hospitality and especially construction. Noncitizens do vital jobs in each, especially construction. Noncitizens also own and manage businesses in each, especially construction.

Jack Herrera describes the ramifications for Texas in the November issue of Texas Monthly. The Texas economy has been soaring since 2000, a classic business boom, population boom, construction boom combo, with one dreaded vulnerability. In Texas, says Herrera, “Cutting off the supply of undocumented workers would be like cutting off the supply of concrete and lumber.”

Texas business folk instruct Texas politicians, frequently and with urgency: if the border closes, the boom crashes. The politicians get it. They satisfy the base with plenty of “the border’s a disaster” rhetoric. Meanwhile, builders build, uninterrupted. With open gates, mass deportation is futile. The U.S. has a serious housing problem. Hurricanes happen, too. The effort to deport one-fifth of the country’s construction workers may commence in three months. Who builds the new deportation detention facilities is the rub.

We can change the world around us by noticing it

Written by Melissa Trussell on October 16, 2024. Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

I had a big birthday last week. The kind where you enter a new decade of life. So, my last several weeks have been characterized by reflection and introspection. A strong theme has emerged—gratitude.

It’s kind of cool that as I was approaching and reflecting on this personal milestone, Interim President Evans challenged all Coastal employees to make this academic year a year of gratitude. Dr. Evans invited Tom Speaks, co-author of the book Appreciology, to campus in August to engage our campus community in conversations around cultivating a culture of appreciation and gratitude. A primary takeaway for me from his visit was a loose definition of appreciation as “noticing.”

I’m trying it—slowing down, noticing. And, I find– as Tom Speaks teaches– that a natural response to the noticing is gratitude for what I notice.

I am grateful the physical needs of my family are met. We have food, housing, transportation, etc. I am equally grateful for the ways in which I notice the emotional and social needs of myself and my family being met.

Here are a few things I’ve noticed just in the last 7 days:

My parents and grandparents deeply love my son and invest in him in intentional, life-giving ways.

Friends I met decades ago remain close and connected with my family.

My faith community shows up for my family and me, actively loving us in countless tangible and intangible ways.

I am valued and supported by colleagues who make work uplifting.

The work I do is meaningful and fulfilling, and my students recognize and reciprocate my care for them.

I have been guided in life by mentors who have been intentional about helping to mold me into the economist, educator, friend, mother, person I was created to be.

I could go on and on about the good things my family, friends, and coworkers bring to my life. I have good people. But, what business does an economist have with all this mushy, gratitude stuff, and why is it the subject of a column such as this? It turns out, gratitude is of great economic significance. Financial advisors find that individuals who express more gratitude for what they have are less likely to make big mistakes with their personal finances. In addition, grateful people are healthier and happier. My colleagues and I have written in the space before about the effects of a mental health crisis on our society in general and on our workplaces more specifically. A meta-analysis of sixty-four randomized clinical trials, published last year, found that the intentional practice of gratitude—noticing—significantly decreased symptoms of anxiety and depression while also improving patients’ overall moods.

But practicing gratitude does more than just lift one’s own spirits. If shared, it can shift the mood (and productivity) of those around you. CNBC reported in 2019 that 60% of employees are more motivated by recognition than by money, but 82% believe their supervisor does not appreciate them for what they do. At the same time, feeling unappreciated was cited as a reason for quitting by 79% of those who quit their jobs.

Imagine the impact in our own lives if we took more time to notice and be grateful. What if we could change our world simply by noticing it?

And imagine the impact on our workplaces and the economy more broadly if we took more time to express aloud our gratitude for the people around us and the work they do. On average, replacing an employee costs 1.5 to 2 times that employee’s annual salary. What if keeping them costs only a “thank you?”

Let’s not just imagine the impact of gratitude on the world around us. I invite you to join me in becoming more intentional about the practice of noticing.

Thank you for reading our weekly columns. We notice, and we are grateful.

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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

Immigration is an Economic Issue

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on October 9, 2024. Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Fifty-five percent of Americans want increased limits on immigration, according to a July 2024 Gallup Poll. This is the first time in nearly two decades that a majority of Americans have supported reductions in immigration.

Donald Trump has made border security his signature issue in his 2024 campaign. Trump’s hardline anti-immigrant stance promises mass deportation of “illegal aliens” and reduced immigration. Kamala Harris has offered support for asylum seekers and acceptance of some “undocumented immigrants” living in the US. Recently, the Harris campaign started running an ad that calls for adding more Border Patrol agents, stopping human traffickers, and prosecuting transnational gangs. The presidential nominees’ stances reflect the national mood on immigration.

Republicans and Democrats in our nation have very different opinions on immigration, according to the Pew Research Center’s Annual Policy Priorities Survey. Dealing with immigration is a policy priority for a majority of Republicans, but a lower priority for Democrats. In fact, there are only two issues that saw a larger divide between folks in the two parties: “protecting the environment” and “dealing with climate change.” The economy is a different story. Strengthening the economy is the top policy priority for Democrats and Republicans in 2024.

Immigration and the economy are intertwined. Insights from demographers can help us to understand why immigration is essential for a healthy US economy. Social demographers consider how economic, institutional, social, cultural, and biological processes shape birth rates, death rates, and migration.

An increasing share of developed nations are in a demographic trap that forecasts bleak futures for their economies. Excluding any immigration or emigration, countries need a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman to replace their population or maintain their population size. There is an initial economic boom when birth rates decline below replacement level as there are more working-age people than dependent children and elderly people. However, decades of low birth rates result in a shrinking and aging populations. Developed nations face the dual economic challenges of a rising population of dependent seniors and a dearth of working-age adults participating in the economy.

More than half of the nations on earth have fertility rates that are below replacement level. The demographic situation is especially dire in nations like South Korea, Ukraine, Italy, and Spain. The US has a 2024 fertility rate of 1.84 children per woman—far below replacement level. Conversely, the world population overall continues to increase due to rapid population growth in developing nations due to high fertility rates, which brings a different set of challenges. Immigration and emigration can address or exacerbate these economic challenges in both developing and developed nations.

Immigration is essential to the health of economies in developed nations with fertility rates below replacement level, especially those with a growing population of dependent seniors. Workers are needed to provide labor in many essential industries, including construction and farming. In addition, immigrant workers, including many undocumented immigrants, fund entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Immigration under the Trump and the Biden administrations has been a significant factor in US economic growth. Many economists claim that the influx of working-class immigrants have reduced inflation. Immigration can fuel an economy by providing necessary workers for nations with low fertility rates.

The US has not passed comprehensive immigration reform in a half century. Comprehensive immigration reform can stymie illegal immigration and facilitate legal immigration that is essential to fuel the US economy. Gridlock and ever-increasing partisanship in Congress makes bipartisan legislation unlikely. It’s hard to imagine a future where our elected officials compromise to pass bipartisan legislation that meets the needs of the American people. Instead, each presidential administration attempts to manage immigration through executive orders. The immigration laws and policies that are enacted will have repercussions for the US economy and shape the future of our nation.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.

Can the Political Temperature be Lowered?

Written by Heather Farley on September 25, 2024. Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

Political violence in the United States feels as though it has reached a crescendo in the last several months. In July of this year, there was an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during one of his political rallies. Just last week, another attempt was intercepted at one of his West Palm Beach golf clubs. Also last week, elections officials in 15 states, including Georgia, received suspicious packages meant to serve as a threat to these early voting states.

These attempts are situated against the backdrop of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, a physical attack on Senator Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022, and even death threats to our own GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger and his family well into 2021 following the results of the 2020 election.

These kinds of events used to feel uncommon or reserved for international headlines out of nations in political turmoil far from here. Yes, acts of political violence took place, but not in the same ways. For nearly a decade in the late-1960s into the 1970s, there was a spike in political violence. It died down by 1980. The major difference in the 1970s was that the violence was aimed at property to affect policy, not at people, explains Rachel Kleinfeld Senior Research Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In the last decade, studies indicate that there has been a steady increase in political violence in the US, specifically against individuals, many of them public officials. The US ranks as the most steadily and rapidly increasing of any developed democracy. In a study that examined acts of political violence between Jan. 6^th, 2021 and August 2023, Reuters identified 213 cases of political violence. Among these, two thirds of the cases were physical assaults and confrontations, 76 were acts of individual violence, and at least 39 have resulted in death. One such fatality was a one-on-one dispute between two Florida men arguing over Donald Trump’s business acumen.

In a 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll of 4,500 registered Democrats and Republicans, 20% of respondents said that violence is “acceptable” if committed “to achieve my idea of a better society.” These examples highlight an important distinction. The political violence we are witnessing is not driven by a single party or faction pursuing a specific goal, but is instead fueled by divisiveness aimed at preventing the actions of those on the opposing side.

Why have our politics become so polarized and so emotionally charged to the point that we are attacking one another and public officials? Fear. Kleinfeld explains that when there is little policy overlap between politicians, people fear what the world will become if the other side wins. We begin to view out-party members as “the other” rather than fellow human beings. This makes it much easier to attack each other both figuratively and literally. Politicians play on this fear through strong rhetoric, and sometimes outright lies, to mobilize their base. This leads to heightened emotional polarization and acceptance of political violence.

There are ways to dampen fear-based rhetoric. Kleinfeld notes that politicians tend to be more ideologically polarized that the general public and the national media tend to give disproportionate attention to the most polarizing figures, distorting perceptions of “the other side.” This is compounded by the two-party system, which forces an “us vs. them” mindset. Democracies with ranked choice voting or multiple parties typically experience less polarization. Ranked choice voting, for example, prompts politicians to appeal to a wider audience, beyond just partisan extremes. Likewise, local news, unlike national outlets, promotes community engagement and split-ticket voting, which can moderate views and reduce extreme polarization.

We must normalize civility again. As the research organization More in Common reminds us, most Americans (about 67%) fall into the category of “the exhausted majority.” That is, most of us dislike the vitriol, hold a mix of views, want people to treat the other side as less of an enemy and more of a loyal opposition, and don’t like the tenor of politics today. Those of us in the exhausted majority can stop giving credence to the outsized polarizing voices. We can hold our own side accountable for unfair rhetoric. And we can condemn threats and violence. It isn’t civil and it is dangerous.

Dr. Heather Farley holds a PhD in Political Science, is Chair of the Department of Business and Public Administration, and an Associate Professor of Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies and an environmental policy scholar. The opinions found in this article do not necessarily represent those of the College of Coastal Georgia.

The New Thinking on Inflation is a Wrong Turn

Written by Don Mathews on September 11, 2024. Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

The “new thinking” that many prominent economists are employing to better understand what caused the 2021-2023 inflation has me flummoxed. Here’s why.

Proposition: When the central bank accommodates a burst of new government spending by purchasing Treasury bonds in the open market that the Treasury just sold in the primary market – or in less technical language, when the government pays for a burst of new spending with money hot off the printing press – inflation is sure to follow. A fundamental and everlasting economic truth, right?

Not any more, according to the new thinking on inflation. There was indeed a world in which an inflation of the 2021-2023 sort had only one possible cause: a stretch of time during which the quantity of money in circulation grows at a significantly greater rate than goods and services produced. Financial deregulation brought that world to an end 40 years ago. The innovations in banking and finance unleashed by deregulation have made it difficult to determine which assets count as money. Thus, the once clear relationship between money supply growth and inflation has disintegrated into no relationship at all.

So says the new thinking on inflation. Having dispensed with the idea that money might have something to do with money prices, economists of the new thinking have been identifying what might cause inflation in our new world of forty years and counting. Leading candidates thus far are supply chain disruptions, wage-price spirals stemming from a tight labor markets, and bursts of government spending, such as the $2.2 trillion CARES Act of 2020 and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021.

What has me flummoxed is the claim that money supply growth no longer shows any relationship to inflation. I made and checked the following calculations using money supply data from the Federal Reserve and consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From 2000 to 2019, the U.S. money supply increased at an average annual rate of 6.2%. Over the same years, the average annual rate of inflation in the U.S. was 2.1%. The Federal Reserve’s aggressively expansionary policy ran from February 2020 through February 2022. From February 2020 to February 2021, the U.S. money supply increased by 26.6%, and from February 2021 to February 2022, by another 12.3%, which works out to a 42.2% money supply growth over the full February 2020 to February 2022 stretch. Inflation? The 12-month rate of inflation in the U.S. in January 2021 was 1.4%. In December 2021, inflation hit 7.2%; in June 2022; 9.0%.

Inflation has fallen considerably: the 12-month rate in July 2024 came in at 2.9%. The money supply has fallen, too – by 4.0% since March 2022.

The relationship between money supply growth and inflation is clear. I can see it without squinting.

Something else has me flummoxed. Monetary controversies have sparked a handful of intense debates about inflation’s causes that are famous in the history of economics. The lessons learned from those debates are worth remembering. Supply chain disruptions cause the prices of a narrow set of goods to increase. Inflation is when the prices of a broad range of goods increase persistently. A wage-price spiral is a symptom of inflation, not a cause. Without money supply growth, a wage-price spiral is impossible. Increases in government spending by themselves do not cause inflation. Every dollar the government spends comes out of someone else’s pocket, including the dollars the government borrows. That is, unless the central bank gets involved.

Forgetting directions and taking wrong turns will get a person lost. That happens in economics sometimes.

Let’s be a college town!

Written by Melissa Trussell on September 4, 2024. Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

On July 31 in this space, my colleague Dr. Don Mathews wrote, “On July 31, we’re near the top. Hearts pound, grips tighten. In short order, we will be launched at warp speed, screaming, with arms stretched high, into a new academic year.”

Well, here we are, two and a half weeks into the drop, and what a thrill it is! When folks have asked me about my semester’s start, I keep returning to this idea that the energy on campus is just different this Fall. And it is different in all the right ways.

Students are showing up early for class and taking notes and engaging in discussion in ways I have not seen at least since before the pandemic. Students have been in my office seeking help and asking good questions in numbers I haven’t seen maybe in all my 8 years at Coastal. And— shout-out to the amazing teams in our Division of Student Affairs and Enrollment Management— campus is abuzz with events and extracurricular activities.

College of Coastal Georgia has come alive this Fall in fresh ways, and my colleagues and I are here for it!

Brunswick, are you here for it?

At the time of this writing, we have a headcount of 3457 students, 63% of whom are coming to us from outside Glynn County. That’s the equivalent of about a 2.5% increase to the population of Glynn County when they are all here.

How are we, as a community, gearing up to support them?

In preparation for this article, I perused several online lists of top “college towns.” I don’t think most of these lists are scientifically generated, but they are interesting conversation starters. According to College Values Online, the only city in Georgia that makes the top 50 small college towns in America 2024 is Valdosta, and they are ranked 50^th. A site called College Snacks narrows the list to 10 best college towns in Georgia for 2024, and they actually call out Brunswick as “officially the worst college town in Georgia.”

Obviously, I disagree! I love Brunswick, and since I have been at Coastal, I have always felt strong and growing support from the Brunswick community.

I also believe we should seize all opportunities to become known as more of a vibrant “college town.” A 2018 editorial on the popular site Niche says, “A location doesn’t get to call itself a ‘college town’ merely by having a university within its city limits. Rather, a real college town is a place where the academic institution is a distinctive feature of the city culture.”

The college and Brunswick are both rapidly growing and changing for the better. We should be intentional about embracing each other, forming our identities around each other, and capitalizing on the energy found in synergy between a college and its town.

I have a few ideas about how to do this, some of which are already happening or beginning to happen in Brunswick.

Businesses—market yourselves to college students. Become a Mariner’s Mate, offering college discounts, and create spaces that are friendly and appealing to young adults.

Non-profits—Don’t count out college students just because they are not big donors. Coastal students want to change the world! Engage with their passions and energy to help accomplish the goals of your organizations.

Faith communities—The number one concern I heard from potential students and their parents at recruiting events I attended last year was anxiety about finding their church home away from home. Our students are looking for you. Will you show up? Plug into College ministries on our campus, and offer rides to your campuses for your gatherings!

City and County Government— Let’s finally get that public transportation going that we have been talking about for ages so students can get to Brunswick for First Friday and other great things we already have going on. We also need to develop housing and childcare solutions that support students and the local workforce we hope they’ll join.

These and other ideas are already taking hold in Brunswick. Let’s keep it going!

In a future column, we’ll look at things the College is doing to spur this dream, as well.

It is an exciting time to be a Costal Georgia Mariner in my favorite college town!

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Connecting in a Disconnected World

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on August 28, 2024. Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

The College of Coastal Georgia is back in session. Campus is bustling. I’m teaching three face-to-face sections of Introduction to Sociology this fall. I love the “collective effervescence” (a sociology term) that everyone feels in these first few weeks. It’s good to be back.

This summer was busy. I taught three online classes. I interacted with students in discussion boards and virtual office hours. I participated in several trainings and workshops, attended meetings, and played my part in seven student orientations. I read some sociology. I made time to write, including From the Murphy Center columns. This summer was a success, but something was missing.

I was missing “connective labor,” according to Allison Pugh’s The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. Pugh defines connective labor as “the forging of an emotional understanding with another person to create valuable outcomes.” It’s not just membership in an organization or integration into a social milieu. Pugh states, “Connective labor is how we see the other, and how we convey to the other that they are seen.”

Connective labor won’t be found in a job description, but it’s a fixture of being a teacher, nurse, pastor, counselor, or coach. It is not limited to professions focusing on others’ well-being. It can be found in management, entertainment industries, sales, consulting, and criminal justice careers.

Connective labor is often invisible, unrecognized, and uncompensated. Yet, it’s a catalyst and vehicle for accomplishing one’s job duties. Connecting with others requires work, but it yields dividends. It’s the “magic” that occurs in the social relationships that underlie work. Connective labor can create better outcomes in patients, increase sales, maintain control in a prison, or improve student learning. It’s a mechanism for generating belonging for the individual and community for the collective.

Over the summer, I was longing for the magic of connective labor. I wasn’t alone. Pugh warns that we’re amid a “depersonalization crisis.”

Relationships have been outsourced. In many industries, data-driven decision-making and a pursuit of efficiencies limit time for developing human connections. Organizations strive to make work “more efficient, measurable, and reproducible.” Automation, apps, and AI take the human element out of work. Much service work is standardized through managerial control, analytics, and assessment plans. This corporate or industrial logic leaves less time for connective labor.

All of this comes at a cost. Autonomy and creativity are threatened. Client and patient relationships are standardized and routinized. Workers are demoralized, experience stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction. This has resulted in labor crises in connecting careers, including teaching and nursing. On the other side, clients, students, and patrons don’t experience meaningful relationships, trust, shared humanity, or solidarity.

All of this is occurring in the context of atrophying social life. 12 to 14 percent of workers in the U.S. are fully remote. Participation in unions, churches, and social clubs is on the decline. We exist in mass media and social media siloes. Social isolation is a serious social problem for seniors and the rapidly expanding population of Americans who live alone.

Self-checkout at retailers, Amazon Prime, and in-app ordering limit our interactions with others. Social media, curated smartphone apps, and AI utilize data to offer us personalized answers to our questions and information that we require to do our jobs. Unfortunately, these personalized technologies alienate us from others.

A decline in connective labor is no doubt playing a role in many social problems, including the overdose epidemic, teen mental health crisis, and struggling K-12 schools. Smartphones and social media get a lot of the blame, but there’s more going on than depression from doomscrolling or comparing ourselves to rich and beautiful people online. The decline of connective labor in education, healthcare, and other industries deprives us of human contact and meaningful connections with others.

Community Drives Isles Revitalization

Written by Drew Cagle on August 21, 2024. Posted in Reg Murphy.

In my last article for the Murphy Center, I gave a very high-level look at how Brunswick has experienced a revitalization in its downtown community in recent years. After some encouragement, I’ve decided to devote the next few rotations to exploring some of the contributing factors more deeply.

Long an economic powerhouse, Brunswick’s fortunes began to wane in the 20th century as the decline of traditional industries and the Great Depression took their toll. The mid-20th century brought further challenges as the town struggled with economic stagnation, population decline, and the loss of major employers. By the 1980s and 1990s, Brunswick’s downtown area, once a vibrant center of activity, had fallen into disrepair. Empty storefronts, crumbling infrastructure, and a lack of investment painted a bleak picture of the town’s future.

The downtown area, once the heart of Brunswick, became a symbol of the town’s struggles. Boarded-up windows, vacant lots, and deteriorating buildings stood as stark reminders of the economic challenges that had beset the community. For many years, it seemed as though Brunswick’s best days were behind it.

Despite these challenges, it was the people of the Golden Isles who never lost hope. Over the past two decades, a growing grassroots movement has emerged to revitalize the town, driven by a deep sense of community pride and a commitment to restoring Brunswick and the Isles to their former glory. Key to this effort have been the initiatives spearheaded by community groups like Forward Brunswick and the Golden Isles Development Authority. While there have been numerous agencies and actors involved with revitalizing the Isles, I’ll focus on these three examples.

The Golden Isles Development Authority (GIDA) has played a pivotal role in attracting new businesses and industries to the area, creating jobs, and stimulating economic growth. By leveraging Brunswick’s strategic location, skilled workforce, and unique cultural heritage, the Authority has been successful in bringing in new investment and fostering a climate of innovation. Entrepreneurs and businesses are moving fast to the Golden Isles. Just last week, the county broke ground on a massive, multi-million-dollar industrial space. While the GIDA is an agency of the city and county governments, it is the drive of the people working there who care deeply about their community that has led to our rapid growth.

Forward Brunswick, a nonprofit organization focused on community development, has been instrumental in revitalizing the downtown area. Through partnerships with local businesses, government agencies, and civic groups, Forward Brunswick has worked to restore historic buildings, beautify public spaces, and promote cultural events that draw visitors and residents alike to the heart of the town. Projects such as the planting of 99 trees to commemorate Liberty Shipyard or the development and beautification of Mary Ross Park have contributed to the area’s resurgence.

The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation, a non-profit founded by the people of the tri-county area, has pulled together and awarded over 23 million dollars in community grants since 2005, allowing businesses and community groups to thrive.

Brunswick is more than just a town that was down on its luck; it is a community of resilient individuals who believe in the power of coming together to create positive change. As new businesses open, historic sites are restored, and public spaces are revitalized, Brunswick is not just being rebuilt—it is being reimagined as a vibrant, thriving community that honors its past while looking boldly toward the future. The road ahead may still have its challenges, but with the spirit of Brunswick’s residents and the support of dedicated organizations, there is no doubt that this town will continue to rise and flourish.

Drew S. Cagle, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at dcagle@ccga.edu.

Time to Make Your Voting Plans

Written by Heather Farley on August 14, 2024. Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

We all know it is important to vote. Yet, many don’t in Glynn County. I hope that changes in the 2024 election cycle. Here’s a look at where the biggest growth opportunities are in our electorate.

Glynn county ranks as the 31^st most populous among 159 counties in Georgia with 86,172 residents (US Census Bureau 2023) and 69,488 registered voters (GA Secretary of State). We have registered a little over 7500 new voters since the 2020 General Election. Of those on the registered voter list, 60,187 are active, meaning they have participated in an election or had other contact with the state’s election system sometime in the past five years.

Demographically in Glynn County, 65% of registered voters are White, 21% are Black non-Hispanic, about 3% are Hispanic, 1.2% are Asian or Pacific Islander, 0.7% are American Indian/Alaska Native, and about 9% are categorized as “other.” Interestingly, white voters in the county skew older than any other racial demographic with 35% of white voters being in age groups over 60 years old. Among all registered voters, 25% are younger voters between 18-34 years old while 31% are over the age of 60.

Who is showing up to vote is a different picture than who can vote in our county. In the 2022 midterm elections, Glynn County had a 57% voter turnout. Nationally, that is comparatively high for a midterm; in 2022, we saw just 46% participation in the US. Within that relatively high turnout rate, 75% of the voters who turned out to vote in the 2022 midterms were white and 15% were Black non-Hispanic. Women showed up in greater numbers with 55% of the turnout versus 45% among men. And within that large group of younger voters mentioned in the registration numbers, we only saw a 10% turnout rate. In contrast, 54% of voters who turned out were over 60. Down the ballot, Republican candidates received roughly 65% of the vote and Democratic candidates received about 33% on average. More than two thirds of all votes cast in the 2022 midterm were early and absentee votes (2022 Election Summary Report).

While I used 2022 data as a recent demonstration, we are consistent in these trends both in midterm and presidential election years in recent history. Younger and non-white voters turn out at disproportionately lower rates than older white voters. Whether that is good or bad for your preferred candidate, it’s not great for the democratic process. When it comes to representation, more is merrier.

Here’s how you can ensure your vote in the November 5^th General Election. First, you must be registered to vote before October 7^th, 2024. You can register online or by mail at https://georgia.gov/register-vote. You should also check the Georgia “My Voter Page” to be sure you are listed as an active voter. If you’re not, you can update your information there as well.

According to the Glynn County Board of Elections, “all three county early voting locations will be open for each election in the 2024 election cycle.” For the November election, early voting will take place Oct. 15-Nov. 1^.and typically runs Monday through Saturday at three locations: Ballard Community building, Board of Elections Office, and Fire Station #2 on St Simons. Since the early voting information has not yet been published, you should verify these locations closer to October.

In the simplest terms, a democratic republic is a representative government elected by the people. For it to keep churning – and that is not a given – it requires that the people participate. My hope is that every one of you votes this November. Whether through early in-person voting, early absentee voting, or in-person at your designated precinct, the time to make a plan for how and when you will vote is now.

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