Submitted by Office of Governor Mike Braun
Governor Mike Braun is leading what he calls a transformation of Indiana’s economic development approach focused on efficiency and putting wage growth for Hoosiers first, and it’s showing major results: in just nine months, state spending-per-job incentivized has been cut by more than half and the average wages of those jobs increased by 10 percent – a 270 percent increase in efficiency of average wage for each state dollar spent.
“Our new approach to economic development is all about growing wages and creating new job opportunities for Hoosiers,” Gov. Braun said. “Each taxpayer dollar is doing more for our state.”
Gov. Braun highlighted a $40.95 average hourly wage for 2025 projects, approximately 17 percent higher than the U.S. average wage, and 42 percent higher than Indiana’s average wage. This average hourly wage is also 13 percent higher than the 2024 new project wage.
Since January, the average wage of jobs incentivized by the IEDC to come to Indiana increased from $36 to $41, a 10 percent increase. That’s over $8,000 annually per job.
Of the 7,844 new jobs created from state-incentivized projects so far this year, 92 percent were above the county average wage, 86 percent were above the state average wage, and 61 percent were above the national average wage.
Results are going up, and costs are coming down. Since Gov. Braun took office, the average cost per incentivized job was cut by more than half, from $47,000 per job to $16,000 per job.