Opinion: A New Effort to Help Places Mired in Poverty

"Should people move to jobs or should jobs move to people? It’s a long-running debate. Lately the Biden administration has been tilting toward the latter. It’s directing $1 billion in Build Back Better money to strengthening clusters of employers in parts of the country where high-paying jobs are scarce. The Economic Development Administration, an arm of the Department of Commerce, staged a competition for grants that attracted 529 entrants. The 21 winners, announced in September, include a project to build clean industries in former coal fields in West Virginia, a green hydrogen project in greater New Orleans, a revolving loan fund for Native American entrepreneurs in South Dakota, a robotics project in Nebraska and a future of food project in California’s Central Valley. Now to see how well it works. The history of what’s known as place-based industrial policy is not encouraging."