Editorial Roundup:

Omaha World Herald. July 16, 2020.

Innovative manufacturing offers great opportunity for Nebraska

One day, we will have a vaccine against the coronavirus, and our country is already gearing up to meet that future medical need. A significant company in the effort will be medical technology leader Becton Dickinson & Co., which has four facilities in Nebraska. Indeed, the company has announced a $70 million expansion in Nebraska, primarily at its needle- and syringe-making plants in Columbus and Holdrege.

This situation highlights one of the key ways that Nebraska can boost its economy for the long term, by strengthening high-productivity businesses that provide good pay for employees. Becton Dickinson is a fine example.

Such a strategy is one of the main recommendations in Blueprint Nebraska, the statewide economic development initiative begun last year through broad public input. In fact, several recent trends offer long-term opportunities for Nebraska’s economy, says Jim Smith, Blueprint Nebraska’s executive director.

The push on the vaccine front is one example. Another, Smith told The World-Herald, is the call to build up our country’s domestic supply chain for medical items, reducing reliance on China. Nebraska’s medical manufacturing businesses are already notably strong as job creators: The state’s pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing sector increased its number of jobs by 12% in 2018, and the state’s medical device-making sector had a 10% increase in employment.

Those sectors have encouraging long-term opportunities to add jobs as the domestic supply chain is strengthened. Another key beneficiary will be Nebraska’s warehousing and transportation industries, Smith said: “You have to have strong logistics in order to meet the supply chains in our country. You’ve got to get the products to market efficiently.”

Blueprint Nebraska promotes various strategies to encourage high-productivity, high-wage manufacturing, including research collaboration; stepped-up commercialization of university and private-sector research; creation of “clusters” of Nebraska technology firms; and expanded venture capital investment.

A key focus is value-added agriculture and agribusiness. So is the concept of nurturing sophisticated, innovative manufacturing across a range of Nebraska industries, at a higher level than basic assembly-line work.

“Greater technology and greater productivity help drive higher wages and higher skill sets in our workforce,” Smith said, as shown by experience in states with the strongest track records on that score. In Nebraska, such economic advancement can boost the long-term prospects not only for households but also for the state’s communities.

Despite the current economic downturn, Nebraska has positive opportunities ahead. Some of the best lie through strategic planning for innovative manufacturing.

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Kearney Hub. July 15, 2020.

PPP saves more than 300k jobs

Recently, as Hub readers scanned the long list of Kearney companies that received federal Payroll Protection Program loans through the federal CARES Act, the list unintentionally may have placed the focus upon the employers who received the money, rather than the employees who it benefited. That impression may have been unavoidable, because at the time the federal government released the recipients, the student journalists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who assembled the list had only company names and dollar figures to work with.

As a result, we learned that Nebraska employers received 42,497 loans. The $3.4 billion represented in those loans helped Nebraska businesses retain 327,536 jobs.

Those jobs are held by your friends and neighbours, or it could be you and the others in your company who benefited.

The small business loans provided by PPP are one of the largest relief measures in the CARES Act, yet they were distributed to all sizes of business, with 90% of those that received borrowing less than $150,000.

The largest per cent of jobs retained under PPP in Nebraska was in the health care field (16%), followed by accommodation and food services (11.3%), and construction (10.8%). The industries that received the greatest number of loans were agriculture (18.6%), construction (11.6%), and other services (11.1%), which includes religious organizations, beauty salons, general automotive repair, and personal care services.

This news comes via the Platte Institute, which noted the Small Business Administration’s release of PPP data arrives as Nebraska lawmakers are within a week away from returning to Lincoln to finish the final 17 days of the 2020 Legislature. There’s a lot of work to be done in that short period, including a decision whether to continue Nebraska’s conformity with federal tax provisions in the CARES Act. According to Adam Weinberg of the Platte Institute, the federal provisions include expanded charitable deductions and increasing the amount of past net operating losses businesses can deduct.

The federal law also makes loan forgiveness under the PPP tax-free. Typically, loan forgiveness is treated as taxable income, Weinberg said.

If the Legislature fails to link Nebraska to the loan forgiveness provisions in federal law, Nebraska recipients of PPP loans would discover they owe taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in forgiven PPP loans.

Sarah Curry, the Platte Institute’s policy guru, said failing to link Nebraska’s tax policies to federal policies would violate the intent of PPP loans, which were distributed to Nebraska businesses so that employees would not lose their jobs needlessly because of COVID-19.

“If the state decouples from the CARES Act’s tax policies,” Curry said, “it will put an additional burden on small businesses and agriculture producers that are already hurting by subjecting them to a tax increase.”

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The Grand Island Independent. July 17, 2020.

Good news, but let’s not backslide

Central Nebraskans are getting a boost in optimism with the opening of Stuhr Museum a couple weeks ago and now Hastings Museum this week. And this weekend the first livestock event at Fonner Park, Lopin and Ropin in the Heartland, is drawing people to town from across the region. Plus, we will be able to spend a leisurely Sunday in the park with Art in the Park back for another year at Stolley Park.

All of this is great news to the residents of the Grand Island area. Crowds will be smaller than in the past, with some people still wary about going out in public. But everything is being conducted safely, with guidance from the Central District Health Department. Participants are urged to wear masks and observe social distancing. Hand sanitizer and hand washing also are important.

At the museums, there are limits to how many people can be inside a building at one time and some exhibits aren’t available because of concerns about crowding. But museums do have a lot of space so people can spread out and easily stay 6 feet away from each other.

The main thing for us to remember is that, even though we can leave our homes and enjoy activities that haven’t been available for several months, we need to remain vigilant about wearing a mask and social distancing.

Central District Health Department Director Teresa Anderson emphasizes that research continues to show the value of face masks.

“We know masks can help protect us in the community,” Anderson said. “The research shows that if you have a mask on and I have a mask on, we’re protecting ourselves from each other.”

She added, “Even if the masks are worn poorly, it’s better than not having a mask on.”

Research also has demonstrated that in communities where people wear masks the spread of the virus has been reduced significantly, Anderson said.

Yet, local stores such as Super Saver and Hy-Vee reported earlier this week that only about half of their customers are wearing masks. We need to do better.

Stores such as Menards have been requiring masks and now Walmart and Sam’s Club have announced plans to begin requiring customers to wear masks starting next week.

It’s hoped that this will help turn our country around as many areas where businesses and events have been resuming operations, the number of COVID-19 cases has increased greatly.

Even in Nebraska, which has been a bright spot in reducing its cases, the state again has been reporting increased numbers of infections. On Tuesday, there were more than 300 new cases reported statewide, a number that hadn’t been seen here since May.

We must be vigilant. We must do better.

We can be confident if we go to Fonner Park, Stolley Park, Stuhr Museum or Hastings Museum and wear a mask, we will be protected from the coronavirus. But our vigilance needs to spread beyond those special places and events.

Wear a mask whenever you will be around people. Anderson described wearing a mask as “essential.”

“In some states, they’re mandated. In Nebraska, it’s a personal choice,” she said. “We also know that personal choices and the community working collaboratively is what’s going to get us through this pandemic without going back to what we had in April and May.”

For more information on COVID-19 safety and precautions, visit cdhd.ne.gov. The latest numbers for positive tests in the three-county area are also available there.