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While the income benefits of a college education receive frequent attention, a recent article from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis highlights the importance of a college degree for wealth accumulation. The average wealth for a college-educated household has tripled since the 1970s, while wealth for households without degrees have remained stagnant. These divergent trends in economic well-being are further evidence of the growing inequality among Americans, and the rising importance of education to staying ahead of this divide.

Postposed primary elections, shuttered schools, sheltering in place orders and millions of workers shifting to home offices while others are displaced completely — the COVID-19 pandemic is radically altering the way of life for the country. States, too, are scrambling to respond to the pandemic while dealing with ongoing legislative sessions and budget negotiations. Some of those responses are detailed here.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking to expand the network of Manufacturing USA centers for innovation, providing pathways for participation from external industry organizations, according to a recent notice in the Federal Register.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently proposed rule changes that aim to make fundraising easier for new companies, including by expanding crowdfunding’s applicability and allowing for “demo day” communications. The changes target three particular methods of exemptions: Regulation A, Rule 504 of Regulation D, and Regulation Crowdfunding.

For the first time and in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) together with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has activated the NIH Urgent Award mechanism. The targeted opportunity is intended to provide funds for NIH grantees applying to expand the scope of their active grant.

Organizations using a web address ending in .ORG should be aware of an upcoming change affecting website registrations. In brief, the nonprofit manager of the .ORG top-level domain is requesting permission from ICANN, which is ultimately responsible for domain registration, to a private equity firm.

The biotechnology industry has made progress in increasing representation, especially in pre-revenue, smaller and private companies, however, diversity and inclusion programming is still in the nascent stages at most companies responding to a survey by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).

A recent New York Times article points to high-profile stumbles by tech startups, particularly underwhelming IPOs by billion-dollar companies and thousands of people laid-off, and declares “start-up bloom deflates, tech is humbled.” As SSTI expressed concern abou

STEM and the American Workforce, a new report backed mostly by science associations, points to STEM jobs as one-third of direct employment, two-thirds of total employment, and 69 percent of America’s GDP. The authors highlight that 60 percent of STEM jobs are filled by people without bachelor’s degrees.

Nine national, nonprofit think tanks and innovation-focused associations have written a letter urging the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations subcommittees to provide $50 million in FY 2021 for Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS; now Build-to-Scale). Similarly, 50 current and former awardees have written to ask Congress to continue expanding the program’s support. These efforts follow dozens of meetings between SSTI members and congressional offices early last month.

Two new reports, one from the National Association of Counties (NACO) and the other from the Pew Charitable Trusts, provide new data on the gaps in access to broadband and some tactics for how states can effectively develop their broadband expansion projects.

As the country’s working age demographic continues to get older, state budgets, especially those in the Northeast, will face greater pressure from increased Medicaid costs, says a new report from S&P Global Ratings. Environmental, Social, And Governance: Increasing Generational Dependency Poses Long-Term Social Risks To U.S.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue recently announced a new Agriculture Innovation Agenda (AIA) to accelerate innovation so that American agriculture can achieve the goal of increasing production 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.

Voters on both coasts may be asked to approve funding this year to help combat the challenges of climate change. Governors in both New York and California are proposing measures to tackle environmental issues, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launching a “Restore Mother Nature Act,” which his office is calling the nation’s most aggressive program for habitat restoration and flood reduction, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing a climate budget that would invest $12.5 billion over the next five years.

Clean energy innovation provides an opportunity for state-level policymakers and other stakeholders to expand economic opportunities and increase the impact of federal activity on climate and energy while also creating local economic development opportunities, according to a new report.

Two more governors have delivered their state of the state addresses over the past two weeks, with help for students taking the stage in New Hampshire while California’s governor enumerated the state’s growth and strengths, but devoted most of his remarks to the ongoing problem of homelessness.

Proving that innovation is appealing to states regardless of their size or political leanings, new initiatives in both Democratic and Republican states, as well as large states like California and small states like Vermont, are driving innovation agendas into action in areas ranging from clean energy and aid for students and colleges, to new venture capital investments and bond financing to support business collaborations with higher education to help translate cutting-edge research into products and companies.

This edition of Useful Stats examines — by state and over the period from 2000 to 2018 — how many new establishments were founded, how many jobs these new establishments created, how many establishments closed, and how many jobs were lost from those closing establishments. In only one year, the last year of the period, 2018, all states experienced positive net gains in employment and establishments, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Trump administration released its FY 2021 budget this week. As with the past three iterations, Congress is unlikely to consider the proposal, which would cut domestic spending by 20 percent over a decade. Nonetheless, a quick review of the White House’s budget reveals the administration’s priorities: EDA, ARPA-E and MEP would be eliminated; total R&D would be cut by nine percent while dramatically increasing funding for AI and quantum information science; loan programs at USDA and SBA would see funding cuts made up through increasing user fees; and, technical education would see a boost through both investments in high school programs and apprenticeship initiatives.

The Advanced Manufacturing Program within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy awarded nearly $140 million to companies and universities in 25 states and the District of Columbia to support 55 advanced manufacturing research projects. Recipients are contributing an additional $47.8 million toward project costs. Projects received an average of $2.5 million, but range from $400,000 to $12 million. The accompanying map presents the distribution of awards across the country and brief details on each recipient.

Although changes in gross domestic product (GDP) give us an idea of how economies are changing, this measure fails to tell the full story. This edition of Useful Stats examines county-level GDP-per-capita, the measure of economic output for each resident in an area. What we see is strongly skewed data with high 2018 GDP-per-capita levels and high 10-year growth rates concentrated primarily in low population-high output counties.

A report on employment trends from hiring firm Robert Half found that 2020 presents greater challenges for employers looking to expand their workforce as the country’s labor market is near full employment and job openings remain at high levels.

Just days after the White House proposed eliminating EDA’s and SBA’s innovation programs, SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council held more than two dozen meetings on Capitol Hill. Teams of universities, venture development organizations and statewide entities talked with congressional staff about the importance of the Regional Innovation Strategies (now “Build to Scale”), the Regional Innovation Clusters, and Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST) programs. Offices were largely interested in, and supportive of, the message.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration has announced the FY 2020 notice of funding availability for the Regional Innovation Strategies program. There are multiple changes to the program this year, including that EDA is now referring to the program as “Build to Scale.” A total of $35 million is available this year due to support from Congress with advocacy from SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council. The Trump Administration budget proposal for FY2020, and again for FY2021, proposed eliminating the program.

With nearly 40 of the state governors now having given a state of the state or budget address, innovation themes continue to echo in their reviews of past accomplishments and plans for the coming year.