This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
As people across the nation see Gov. Kristi Noem's pitch to come work in South Dakota, local journalists are doing some digging. The "Freedom Works Here" worker recruitment campaign promotes thousands of open positions, each offering high wages.
Our Dakota Political Junkies analyze the media buzz around the campaign.
Mike Card is a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota. Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader.
They take a close look at what the ads say and what they don't say.
____________________________________________________________
Lori Walsh:
Gov. Kristi Noem has appeared on television screens across the nation for the "Freedom Works Here" recruitment campaign. She's presented her pitch for people to move to and work in South Dakota, and that pitch includes very appealing salary numbers and thousands of job openings.
Let's check in today with our Dakota Political Junkies about that campaign and dig into these questions: Are these ads an honest representation of what it's like to live, work and earn in South Dakota? Who is behind those ads? How do they get the bid and how do we measure their success?
Mike Card is a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of South Dakota. Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame, and they're both with me in SDPB's Kirby Family studio.
Dr. Card, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Mike Card:
Thanks for inviting me.
Lori Walsh:
Mr. Hunter. Welcome as well.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks, Lori.
Lori Walsh:
Now a lot of media outlets are digging into "Freedom Works Here" and certainly the governor's office is very proud and has called it the most successful campaign of its kind ever. I just have a few of these articles in front of me today.
SDPB's Lee Strubinger back in August was looking at that claim that the starting salary for an apprentice is $77,000 on average.
South Dakota News Watch, on Sept. 18, Stu Whitney is looking at how businesses are being asked to pitch in.
On Oct. 2, Patrick Lalley with Sioux Falls Live is talking about the firm who's leading the campaign and their relationship with the governor's office and potentially her political ambitions.
And then The Dakota Scout, Joe Sneve on Oct. 2 expanded on Patrick Lalley's reporting and kind of laying out that timeline further for who's getting paid to do these ads.
And of course, the governor's office is like, they're working and you're missing the point that they are working. A lot of attention to this ad campaign.
Mike Card, let's start with you. Why do you think everybody cares so much about "Freedom Works Here" and whether it's working?
Mike Card:
Well, I think there are two aspects to this. The first one is South Dakota needs workers. We have a 1.9% unemployment rate. We'll get the new one this Friday at about 8 a.m. That's when South Dakota's unemployment rate will be released.
We have over 20,000 job openings. We need workers. We don't have workers. It's a double-edged sword to have a low unemployment rate. Looks good, people are working, but if we're going to attract new business, if business is going to expand, they need workers and we don't have them right now. We need to attract people.
We can either do it through migration, people moving from other states, or from immigration, people moving from other countries. That's the first aspect.
The other aspect is are those salaries good? I think you want to talk about that a little later, but the ultimate goal, I would think, is actually to get people to apply for jobs with an employer. And that seems to be a missing link in this program is we apply to the state for maybe funds to work, but they have to get an appointment with the job counselor and then somehow they magically appear. I think that's the part that is really questioning here, but I'll let you run the conversation.
Lori Walsh:
Jon Hunter, what do you want to add to that?
Jon Hunter:
Boy, there's so many issues in this. Your introduction to Mike's speaking here, people over time generally have followed jobs. And that's the migration that we're talking about is they'll move from state to state where jobs are and they'll move away from Michigan or Detroit or wherever it is when jobs are bad and to other states.
South Dakota has jobs. It's crystal clear that that's true. This campaign is intended to accelerate that process and not just hear it by word of mouth, but to say, look, here's what it is. And the campaign has been fairly specific about what types of jobs. These are contractors and so forth.
Lori Walsh:
Plumbers, electricians, welders.
Jon Hunter:
Right. There are so many of those jobs that are available. I know in Madison and other cities where work is not getting done because we have a lack of people with those skills. The legislature also addressed it by expanding the number of licenses that can come into the state. I think it's modestly focused on particular types of jobs and there's some lifestyle to that too, like come to South Dakota, it's safer or better or whatever.
But I think it's mostly focused on jobs, and I think that's a good focus.
Lori Walsh:
Her "Bright Side" ad said, first we stayed open for business during the pandemic. Second, we've got more jobs than people. Third, we're the freest state in America. We're the best state to live, work and raise a family. We accept most out-of-state licenses. We've got 20,000 open jobs.
And of course, in other ads she's mentioned we also have no state income tax. You're going to keep more of that money. Those are a lot of selling points.
Mike Card, I want to talk a little bit about the salary, though, because that has been something that she's sort of led with, the average salary for an apprentice. And some of those trade organizations in South Dakota really pushed back against that and said that number is really stretching what someone who's a starting apprentice is going to make. You're not going to come here and make $77,000 on average, maybe ever. How important is the accuracy? I mean, the company stated a Department of Labor statistic was what they were talking about, but...
Mike Card:
It was a nationwide figure as opposed to a South Dakota figure. Wages in South Dakota are generally lower than they are in most other places in the United States. Not all. I believe our average personal income is $39,000. Our average, or excuse me, median family income is $67,000. We hope by recruiting skilled tradespeople that they're going to make above that. Now we start throwing in, what are the limitations to that?
Well, one of the biggest needs that we have in South Dakota is housing. And we had, I wouldn't call it a debacle, but it was certainly a kerfuffle in terms of—
Jon Hunter:
That's Lori's word!
Lori Walsh:
I do love the word kerfuffle. Yes, it's true.
Jon Hunter:
There are synonyms to that too, by the way, we could use.
Mike Card:
Yes.
Lori Walsh:
A few.
Mike Card:
Yes. My father taught me those from World War II, but we can't use them.
But I mean, we need housing, we need daycare, you need spousal employment. There are lots of things that go with recruiting people to the state so that they can afford to live and work and take advantage of the wonderful things that we have in South Dakota. And we do have wonderful things.
Lori Walsh:
Right? When you check out SDPB's town hall last night about childcare in the state, it certainly does not paint a picture with some of the information people were bringing that you would be able to find not only the work but the childcare. Childcare is a huge component of that and I would suggest people check that recording out. Jackie Hendry did a fabulous job. It was really engrossing.
I want to expand a little bit further and bring in some reporting that we've seen from South Dakota News Watch and from Sioux Falls Live. Stu Whitney's piece is talking about businesses really being asked to pitch into this. How is this campaign funded? Who's paying for it?
And now why is the governor's office asking for more money from local businesses? Is that new? Is that unique to this? Who wants to sort of begin with the participation of local businesses? What is the governor's office looking for here?
Mike Card:
Well, let me start by saying that recruitment in the online world is very expensive in terms of getting contact information from which people can follow up and then try to actually recruit people here.
What we're looking for is a qualified applicant with any recruiting effort. And so that has to be translated from someone who's interested in South Dakota, someone who works with an advisor to figure out how they can get here and then once they get here, how do we get the applications to businesses so that they can determine whether there's a qualified applicant? I would expect the rate to be relatively low and the cost to be relatively high. In a sense, we've spent six and a half million dollars.
It's high-quality work. I don't think there's any doubt about that.
Lori Walsh:
The ads are high-quality made.
Mike Card:
The ads are high quality.
Lori Walsh:
Well made, yeah. Go ahead.
Mike Card:
But just from that standpoint, we know this is a very expensive process and there are probably limits to how much we can tap the Futures Fund and money to recruit here.
Lori Walsh:
Jon, say more about the Futures Fund. Help us understand where this money for the governor's ad first is coming from.
Jon Hunter:
Sure. It was developed a long time ago, I believe, under Gov. Mickelson's leadership. I'm going to say late 1980s is when that came into effect. But it was a surplus of, Mike, you can correct me on this, on unemployment contributions and intended really to, like Gov. Noem, but let's talk about the next generation. And that's why they call it the Futures Fund is to try to do things that will benefit us in the future.
However, governors have used it for all sorts of purposes. And so I think it doesn't have legislative control like this. It is under the administration of the governor's, yes, of the administration. Yes, some of that has been used. There've been some other sources too, Lori, as you mentioned, on getting development corporations from cities to contribute to this. And the question is, why would they do that?
Well, they would be the beneficiaries. They're trying to do the same thing. They're trying to bring people to Sioux Falls or Mitchell or Yankton or Madison. But it is a little unusual to have that kind of funding in there. But I think the governor's office and the people involved with this campaign believe that, look, this is a success. This is working. Let's continue this. Yes, we've spent this money already. Let's keep it going.
And so that's why they're asking. I don't know the response to that. Some cities have said, yep, sure, we'll do it. Others said, no, we haven't seen any applicants. We haven't seen any numbers or names or contacts. I don't know how that's going to continue to go.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. There are certain things that are promised like you will get a mention on this website. You'll get a perk from it. You'll get contact. That data that you were talking about, Mike, and some of these businesses, according to Stu Whitney's piece, haven't really seen the information yet. They're hoping to see it soon, but as of Sept. 18, they were saying, we haven't seen the results of this yet.
Mike Card:
And they may be choosing not to use this information. They want to do their own recruiting because they have.
Lori Walsh:
They're already doing their own recruiting, yeah.
Mike Card:
Their own skillset that they're looking for in order to get qualified applicants that then they can determine, can you do the work? Will you do the work? Can we stand to work with each other? Three fundamental questions in hiring.
Lori Walsh:
And this gets to something else, which all these pieces are getting at, is this campaign about South Dakota or is it about the governor herself? Is it raising her national profile, which will in turn help her win a national office? Or is she using her national profile to recruit workers for South Dakota because she's good at it and it works? And that is something people have a lot of questions about because we're talking about public money that's being spent in a nationwide campaign.
Where is that line for you, Jon Hunter? Where is that line for any of us? Where should the line be?
Jon Hunter:
Well, I think your question describes the situation perfectly. There certainly are people in other states who already know Gov. Noem from television appearances, national campaigns, campaigning for others, campaigning for herself. She does have a much higher national profile than any or many of our previous governors. It's not unusual for the governor to be the face of a state. I mean, you think of Chris Christie. I mean, you could think of a lot of governors who do that.
The question is, and your question is, I'll repeat it even, are we taking this national profile and saying, hey, people recognize this face and so forth and saying, hey, I want to move to South Dakota. Or are we saying, we're spending taxpayer monies to say, let's promote this? Let's put the face of this governor onto NASCAR, on the side of NASCAR to raise that profile even further.
The reason it's a challenge is because yes, it's been done before, not as much in South Dakota, probably not much since Governor Janklow used to be a pretty large profile, at least in the region. Going to Minnesota and calling out Rudy Perpich over there.
But I'd say actually the NASCAR example that I bring up, to me, was the line. There is not much on that car talking about South Dakota. There's a large photograph of Gov. Noem. And you think of a NASCAR audience, maybe there are a lot of tradespeople and they're watching NASCAR. Maybe that's an effective way to do that and you put this photograph on the side of the car. But to me, and also remember that list of six things you just read here a little bit?
When you say we're the freest state in America, that's a campaign statement. There's no real thing about a welder coming from another state that does that. That might be appealing to Republicans in other states or even right Republicans. And say if we say freedom with a capital "F" most of the time, then maybe that would encourage more Republicans to move here. And that should be the goal. At least maybe it is or maybe not.
But we're trying to get workers, tradespeople with skills and licenses and so forth. There are lines. I think I could argue either way, whether that's a profile thing working here or promotion of the governor.
Mike Card:
And where some of the TV ads have been located is not exactly where skilled tradespeople would look. The debates, the counterprogramming to the debates, running those ads there, usually those who watch those types of programs are politicals, people who are interested in the power.
Lori Walsh:
But Joe Plumber is watching those. Don't you remember Joe Plumber's appreciation of the debates?
Alright. I do want to get to this timeline. Speaking of lines and crossing and the timeline. And this is largely, I'm going to quote from Sioux Falls Live's coverage written by Patrick Lalley. Looking at the agency and the CEO of this agency, Benjamin Yoho of Strategic Media Placement. On Jan. 7, the CEO is photographed at the inauguration with Gov. Kristi Noem. Strategic Media Placement, which is not a South Dakota company, registers as an out-of-state company on Jan. 12. A day later, they get their designation for doing business as Strategic Media, on Jan. 13t, the RFP for "Freedom Works Here" is published and April 13, they're awarded the contract. The argument or the questions are, and Yoho is tied to Lewandowski and is tied to the Republican Party. The idea is were they tipped off, the governor's offices? No, they were not tipped off. There was going to be an RFP, but Mike Card, you say it doesn't pass the smell test.
Mike Card:
Well, I don't think it does because, I mean, there appears to be some smoke here. The timeline looks suspicious. And I think that was the point of Mr. Lalley's reporting. Jon Schaff, a political science professor at Northern State University, also noted that this just doesn't look right.
We don't know. I think we would feel better if there wasn't so much money involved. We're talking almost $7 million by the time this program will be completed. We're asking businesses and development organizations and communities to throw in more money. How much of this is going to whom? It's high-quality work, but we haven't seen results that we can depend upon to judge whether the program is working or not. Then that raises people's suspicions. And then that's where I come off saying it fails to smell test.
Lori Walsh:
Final thoughts, Jon, in our last 30 seconds?
Jon Hunter:
It's fair to say that under Gov. Noem's administration that most, if not all, actions have some sense of political underlying. At most, it's entirely political. I think you could make an argument that all these decisions and having a political agency running a nonpolitical campaign at least fits in with what has happened in the most. But it could very well be past what we'd normally consider success.
Lori Walsh:
Alright. More on this later. Jon Hunter, Mike Card, thanks so much for stopping by.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks, Lori.
Mike Card:
Thanks for having us.
