Here’s where remote workers can still get paid to move

Since 2018, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma has dished out $10,000 to more than 4,000 remote workers for moving there—and according to a new study, generated more than four-times that sum in economic impact.

Cities and towns have long offered tax incentives and other perks to employers that bring jobs. In recent years, however, the Tulsa Remote program—which is primarily funded by community-based nonprofit the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF)—has proven that there can be equal or greater value in recruiting mobile workers one at a time.

Though $10,000 might sound like a hefty sum, new research suggests each dollar given returns $4.31 to the local economy, including $2.09 in direct taxes and $1.80 in local job creation.

“It’s about getting out of the old-fashioned way of thinking about economic development,” says Justin Harlan, managing director of Tulsa Remote. “It’s a little bit harder, but the return is there; it just takes a little bit different thinking, especially in today’s world where flexible workers have so much choice in terms of geography.”

Most participants admit they wouldn’t have applied if not for the cash incentive. But for Harlan and Tulsa Remote, the focus is on helping new residents put down roots during their mandatory one-year stay. To that end, Tulsa Remote connects them with fellow program members and alumni, local nonprofits and business leaders, and a dedicated staff member to assist their transition.  

Since launch, 96% of participants completed their first year, and 70% have remained long-term. One even ran for mayor. 

Over the years, and especially in the wake of the pandemic, many communities have tried to emulate Tulsa’s model, but few have seen the same success.

Pulling Back on Cash Rewards

Savannah, Georgia, for example, once offered remote workers $2,000 to relocate. “We saw success with the incentive for 2020 and 2021,” explains Angela Hendrix, the chief marketing and public affairs officer for the Savannah Economic Development Authority. “But after that people were not moving quite as much for remote jobs.”

A 2018 program that paid remote workers $7,500 to move to Vermont lost funding in 2023, after resources were allocated to more pressing needs like COVID and flooding, says Nick Grimley, the deputy commissioner of that state’s Department of Economic Development.

Similar programs in the Shoals region of Alabama, in Rochester, New York and in Topeka, Kansas—which once offered remote workers between $5,000 and $15,000 for making the move—have since ended their programs.

Some cite declining remote work opportunities in the wake of return-to-office (RTO) mandates, some expressed concerns over housing availability, while others say the programs were only funded temporarily. 

“In August of 2020, we added a remote worker option, where we offered anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 for a remote worker to relocate, based on their income and whether or not they were renting or purchasing a home,” explains Trina Goss, the vice president of business and talent initiatives for Go Topeka.

Goss explains that the remote worker incentive program was launched in tandem with a program that reimbursed employers for half of their employees’ relocation costs after one year. That program remains, and Topeka has since added similar cash incentives for military personnel and former Topeka residents.

Those programs, according to Goss, offer an incredible 34 times return on investment over the course of five years, assuming the recipient remains. That is ultimately where the program struggled with remote workers: not in the attraction, but retention.

“There are a lot of communities that offer incentives for remote workers, it’s become a very popular thing, and I think there are individuals who chase incentives,” Goss says. “They may come to Topeka for a year because we’re offering them $5,000, then they go to Tulsa because they’re offering this much money. Especially if they don’t have kids, they can easily go all over.”

Goss says that Topeka’s new incentive programs require a home purchase to help guard against those incentive chasers. At the same time, she admits that there are things the city could have done to make it harder for remote workers to leave after they collect the cash.

“We have learned through surveys that new residents sometimes struggle with getting engaged in the community, meeting people, ‘finding their tribe’ so to speak,” she says. “We fell short on that for a while, honestly, but we’re planning to launch some better engagement opportunities this year.”

Remote Workers Wanted

In the wake of the pandemic, many small and mid-sized cities temporarily converted business relocation incentive programs to attract remote individual workers with cash, only to switch back. More recently, however, smaller and more rural communities have seen success using the same playbook.

“What you’ll see on our site is a lot of places that have been considered ‘flyover country,’ or that historically have exported talent out,” says Evan Hock, the chief operating officer of MakeMyMove, an online platform that connects remote workers looking for a new place to call home with cities and towns offering incentives. “They’re not able to participate in a traditional economic development play, which is recruiting a business to relocate, so they’re starting to view this as a viable tool to bring economic impact to their communities.”

Hock co-founded MakeMyMove alongside fellow former Angie’s List executives Bill Oesterle and Mike Rutz in late 2020. The platform initially launched with 20 communities in their home state of Indiana and now includes 180 that are recruiting remote workers to communities in Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Oklahoma. By Hock’s estimate, about three quarters offer cash incentives, which typically range from $2,500 to $15,000.

New Opportunities, and Competition

According to a study conducted by Indiana University on behalf of MakeMyMove, for every $100,000 of annual income that relocated workers bring, the community sees an annual economic impact of $83,000 in the form of tax revenues, local spending and job creation.

“What we’re seeing is communities starting to compete on non-monetary amenities and incentives to get people connected to that place,” Hock says. “For instance, Bloomington and Muncie, Indiana both let you serve on the board of a local nonprofit as a way to give back but also help them build new friend groups and professional networks.”

Offering incentives that go beyond cash, according to Hock, will become more important as competition for mobile talent grows not just locally and nationally, but globally.

“I think we’re going to see across the U.S. adoption of this sort of retail economic development recruitment programs, but we also see it as a global phenomenon,” he says. 

“The same issues that Indiana’s dealing with Italy is dealing with—and we’re seeing a lot of these programs spring up internationally trying to attract smart people.”

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