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- The Tulsa Remote program offers remote workers $10,000 to move to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
- Research finds that the influx has boosted local businesses and jobs and increased residents' well-being
- It shows what could happen in other cities that welcome in new workers.
A few years ago, Tulsa, Oklahoma, began to offer something unique to remote workers who moved there: $10,000.
The offer was through a program called Tulsa Remote, which aimed to lure in professionals from elsewhere in the US who can work remotely full-time. The idea is that those workers will come in, bring their skills and spending power, and hopefully stick around.
And it seems to be working: The program counted over 2,000 people relocated to Tulsa as of December 2022, according to its economic impact report. At the end of 2022, Tulsa Remote had brought in almost $307 million in direct labor income to the economy, according to Tulsa Remote. For every two Tulsa Remote members who move to the city, three more come with them. And, going back to 2019, out of everybody that's completed a year there to date, 76% have stuck around.
Similarly, a 2022 Brookings Institution report found that Tulsa Remoters saw their real incomes go up by $26,500 a year more than those who had been accepted but hadn’t yet moved to the area. And their productivity did not fall, even with the move.
But what happens to the rest of the economy when remote workers come to town? A new paper from Hoyoung Yoo, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looked at the impacts of the program on local residents.
The answer: It was especially good for places like coffee shops, restaurants, and hair salons — and the people who work there or want to. Overall, local residents saw a 1.28% increase in their average welfare as wages rose from remote workers spending their salaries on local goods.
"There's obviously a lot of labor demand that has been created. You have a need for more people working at the coffee shop or more folks visiting, so therefore you need more people working at the hotel or more bartenders or whatever else it would be," Justin Harlan, managing director of Tulsa Remote, said. Overall, Tulsa Remote estimates the new demand created 722 local jobs and added almost $40 million to locals' incomes.
Yoo found that the local service sector saw a 7.95% increase in employment, most likely because of how much remote workers spent. Yoo told BI that one of the “special characteristics” of remote workers is that they’re often high-skilled and high-income — and that means that they’ll spend a lot in their new locations.
“They go to restaurants, coffee shops, hair salons, and it can be helpful in boosting local economic growth,” Yoo said.
And, importantly, the remote workers coming in aren’t newcomers in search of a job. That’s also key, as Yoo notes: “They will not compete with local residents for local jobs.”
What remote workers mean for local businesses and residents
The increased spending at local coffee shops and services shook out to 2.36 service jobs created per new remote worker, according to Yoo’s research. It also meant more service establishments were actually created, “which contributes to enrich the varieties of local service goods offered to local residents,” as the paper found.
Indeed, Yoo found that remote workers were much more likely to spend at restaurants — and eat out — than their non-remote counterparts. People were switching into these coveted service roles from what Yoo called the tradable sector — the sector that produces goods like electronics, clothing, and so on.
Inheritance Juicery, a juice bar and restaurant in Tulsa that touts its space as a “welcoming gathering place,” has felt the Tulsa Remote boost. Parker Vincent, the operations manager at Inheritance Juicery, said that at least five program participants have become regulars, and some have even hosted special events for their businesses there.
“I'm very sure that our sales have increased because of the program,” Vincent said. There’s been an increase in coffee and food sales, he said, and people are coming in to work on their laptops or have meetings there.
“You get to hear a lot of cool stories, and see a lot of different types of businesses and hear about what people are doing — different types of entrepreneurs, or maybe they work for another company, but they're able to be remote,” Vincent said. “I've had a lot of really cool conversations with different people.”
And the people moving in seem to be enjoying it. In November, Business Insider’s Noah Sheidlower reported on four workers who took the plunge and made the move to Tulsa. All said they wanted to stick around.
"What's really exciting about living in Tulsa is it's so affordable, and my mental health increased like never before," Laura Landers, a 32-year-old entrepreneur who moved from Los Angeles, previously told BI. "I was actually a person and not just the shell of a human."
Harlan, the managing director, said that one in five Tulsa Remoters has started a business since moving to Tulsa. And their impact has been felt beyond just the economy: Harlan gave the example of one participant who came in in the original cohort and starred in a local theater production. That participant is now "one of the big names in local theater," even directing shows.
"His wife has opened a restaurant where they employ 15 to 20 employees every year," Harlan said.
Navigating a new landscape
Of course, a changing landscape means different things for different people.
Remote workers coming to town benefited high-skilled local service workers — workers who have at least some college education — more, per the research, since they had more variety in local goods to choose from and consume and are making more money.
The same is true for homeowners since rising housing prices mean that their homes are more valuable. That’s not all good news for low-skilled workers, especially those in the trade sector, who may have to pay more for housing — and while their nominal income still went up, it didn't go up as much as the high-skilled workers, widening what Yoo terms a “welfare gap.” Similarly, unemployed workers take a hit as prices for goods and housing go up.
“There are people who definitely get more benefit out of it, like homeowners or the local service sector workers,” Yoo said. “So if we redistribute the benefit that these kind of folks receive to subsidize the other group, then there can be the room to make everybody better off.”
Harlan said that the program shares resources proactively with participants about how to buy a home in a way that's equitable and doesn't lead to gentrification. And some of those changing economic winds might also be attributable to the landscape of Tulsa as a whole changing, especially as housing prices increase nationwide.
But, as the country contends with brain drain and doom loops in smaller cities — and remote work is here to stay, at least in some forms — it might just turn out that luring in workers could be an effective one-two punch. In Tulsa, where population growth stagnated in the early 2000s, the 2020s have been a boon. Harlan said that he hears from people every month — for a while, it felt like every week — who were interested in "wanting to learn what the special sauce is that makes this go."
For Vincent, the operations manager at Inheritance, the program has already meant an influx of New Yorkers checking out the juice spot.
“They're coming from a big city, coming to Tulsa — which is still an up-and-coming city — and it's cool to hear what they have to say,” he said. “Like, ‘wow, Tulsa's actually really cool. There's a lot going on here, it's so under the radar that you wouldn't have thought, but I'm glad that I'm here.’”
Did you move to Tulsa, or another area, to work remotely? Do you have a story to tell about remote workers moving to your city? Contact this reporter at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.