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It’s easy to see the source of the TimberJay’s confusion on this report. The editorial focuses on the aggregate impact while the Mining Minnesota narrative has always been about efficiency ($80,000 vs. $$18,000 earnings per worker, jobs and jobs multiplier generated). Praxis worked hard in its report to give tourism jobs every benefit possible. Again, the study was about quality of jobs, not quantity. Ultimately, our direct and indirect earnings per worker and jobs multiplier for tourism were congruent with the recently completed study of tourism by the Friends of the Boundary Waters. The Praxis study removed some of the lowest paying jobs in the region (for example, food service) and added in about 125 higher-paying sporting good manufacturing jobs. The roughly 12,000 food service jobs averaged about $14,000 in wages or about $16,300 including benefits and other compensation. The aggregate job multiplier for these jobs is 1.16 – much lower than what is credited for tourism in our report. In other words, comparing on an apples-to- apples basis, adding in food services would have dragged the tourism numbers down, not boosted them as the Timberjay editorial suggests.
The Timberjay editorial notes, “In either case, it shouldn’t be an either-or proposition.” On that key, broad point, we agree. We have never said that it’s okay to sacrifice tourism for mining because mining jobs are better. We maintain, and the study supports, that tourism jobs are not an equivalent economic substitute for mining or for perhaps any other primary sector industry.
Am I a tourist when I spend my mining dollars eating and drinking at a restaurant in Ely or Duluth?
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