Governor Braun putting Hoosier wage growth first shows massive boost in efficiency for taxpayer dollars

Governor Mike Braun is leading 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 ninth months, state spending-per-job incentivized has been cut by more than half and the average wages of those jobs increased by 10% -- a 270% 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. Each taxpayer dollar is doing more for our state.”  — Governor Mike Braun
 

At today’s event, Governor Braun highlighted a $40.95 average hourly wage for 2025 projects, approximately 17% higher than the U.S. average wage, and 42% higher than Indiana’s average wage. This average hourly wage is also 13% 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% 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% were above the county average wage, 86% were above the state average wage, and 61% were above the national average wage.

Results are going up, and costs are coming down: since Governor 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.