WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=hxyGn2FyOKk

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: hxyGn2FyOKk):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Called to Order; Agenda and Packet Overview
- 00:01:06: Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative Project Introduction
- 00:06:39: Climate Adaptation Partnership Background and Projections
- 00:12:40: Future Climate Predictions, Impacts on Cook County
- 00:16:11: Ongoing Climate Work and Community Engagement Event
- 00:19:30: Public Comment: Local Flooding, Culvert Importance
- 00:20:34: Public Comment: Frequency of Declared Emergencies
- 00:21:21: Public Comment: Impact on Dog Sled Racing Season
- 00:22:26: Public Comment: Map Accuracy of Tribal Territory
- 00:23:40: Transition to Carson Gorki's Labor Market Presentation
- 00:25:02: Carson Gorki: Introduction to Labor Market Analysis
- 00:27:17: Demographic Trends in Cook County: Population, Age
- 00:31:38: Factors Influencing Population Change, Tourism's Role
- 00:33:14: Aging Population Trends and Housing Demand Impacts
- 00:36:19: Migration Patterns and Influence on Cook County
- 00:40:58: Natural Population Changes and Migration Impact
- 00:43:29: Unemployment Rates, Labor Force Trends and Issues
- 00:46:40: Job Vacancies, Retirement Impact on Labor Force
- 00:51:01: Employment Trends by Sector: Cyclical Employment
- 00:55:57: Breaking Out Statistical Information into Strategic Categories
- 00:59:16: Tourism Sectors and Migrant Workforce Details
- 01:00:55: Housing Affordability and Workforce Challenges
- 01:04:54: Cook County Housing Characteristics, Median Home Values
- 01:07:14: HUD Rental Rate Discrepancy and the Benefit Cliff
- 01:09:39: Vacant Housing Units: Recreational and Seasonal Homes
- 01:14:13: Rising Home Values and Rental Rate Comparisons
- 01:16:36: Values of Owner Occupied Housing and Related Demographics
- 01:19:16: Effective Tax Rates versus Median Home Prices
- 01:21:24: Affordability Drivers and Market Dynamics
- 01:23:04: Supply Issues: Authorized Housing Units and Burdens
- 01:27:10: Realtor Affordability Index and Home Sales Pricing Trends
- 01:28:48: Addressing the Affordability Gap: Building, Renting and Renovations
- 01:31:32: Tiny Homes Discussion in Cook County
- 01:32:04: Housing Costs versus Wages and Affordability Gaps
- 01:33:41: Follow Up Questions and Final Remarks


Part: 1

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Okay. Is she saying that? Is that >> good morning everyone is back. I will call the committee of the whole work session to order on this day of Tuesday, March 17, St. Patrick's Day, 2026 at 10:40.

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Um, in our packet, we have the minutes from our previous meeting which was um provided here on February 17th of 2026. On the agenda today, we have a climate projection presentation and also a deed

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presentation. Also in our packet, we have information only from the airport advisory commission, the budget and facilities advisory committee, and the highway advisory committee for information only on that. So, I will

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begin with um turning it over to um administrator Treble on the deed presentation. >> Oh, the the climate presentation. All right. >> All good. No, all good. Well, good morning everybody. Uh, yeah, I can jump in. My name is Seth Spencer. I am an

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extension educator with the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership. Uh, and I'll share a little bit about a project that is going on in the region. Um, and then talk a little bit about some climate projections and then, uh, just share some things that

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are happening in the area. So, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I'll talk a little bit about the Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative, and I might come back to that beautiful picture, but, um, some of you might be aware that we are in year two of a 4-year National

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Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration federal grant that was, um, delivered to St. Louis County as the host. It's a $1.8 million planning grant around climate resilience. And what's pretty amazing is that this is the whole scope

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of the area that this uh planning grant is focused on. So you'll see of course Cook Lake St. Louis and Carlton counties, the 1854 treaty authority region and then Grand Portage FondeLac and Boyce Ford. Um these are the main uh partners on this grant. But what we have

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basically formed is North Climate Resilience Collaborative. Um, and so we do have an official logo that uh kind of looks at both the coastland but also all the way into um kind of boy fort in the upper part of St. Louis County.

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Uh, so hopefully this is not a surprise, but Cook County is one of those partners. Um, and then we do have uh our wonderful partners with the Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District, uh, Lake County and Carlton County Soil and Water Conservation District. And then the two facilitators of this

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project are the Arrowhead Regional Development Commission and then the University of Minnesota. And so I'm working with my colleague Diana Gilhood um to basically just get all these amazing folks that have been doing great work in the region together. Make sure we're kind of using that same language and really just continue to build trust

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and say, "Hey, we're all trying to make sure that our region is prepared for the changes that are coming around our climate and weather." um and really just continue those those conversations. So, uh kind of the big things that we're looking at are that increased regional

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coordination um and really making sure that that planning process is collaborative that all uh levels of kind of government um to from townships to cities to counties to tribal nations are a part of the conversation. we don't get

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to the end of our planning grant in 2028 and people are like, "Hey, why didn't you include us?" Um, also make sure we're really having an increased understanding of what the climate impacts are across the region. This is a pretty large region. Um, when you're looking at trying to create a climate

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resilience plan, it's amazing that the city of Duth and the city of Grammar and um, Grand Portage and Boycefort already have their own climate adaptation or climate resilience plans. But as as a whole, this is a big region to be thinking about, okay, what are the impacts and then what are the solutions?

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And so we're definitely looking at things like coastal erosion, but we're also looking at kind of that inner part of St. Louis County and Boyce for wildfire risk. Of course, here in Cook County, a major concern. Um, but even I'll show you uh increased summer temperatures are a pretty big concern.

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Not so much in Grand Marray or Cook County. Um but definitely you go 30 40 miles inland um it will get much warmer in the summer. Um and then really making sure we're looking at all of this resilience in a lens of people um

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ecosystems but also economy. We know that our changing climate is really impacting um the way that people can recreate but also can have jobs and how businesses operate. And so one of the things that we did is we know that there has already been

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great work happening in the region. There are already plans around uh transportation around tourism around uh watersheds that have been done. And so we looked at all of these plans um made sure we kind of highlighted what is

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already happening and then saw not a ton but a few gaps of making sure that that's what we really address. Um we are looking at uh some working groups um with the umbrella of tribal sovereignty um and really making sure that we're focusing on what our partners that those

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17 organizations are concerned about. And so the the five main things were critical infrastructure so buildings uh transportation roads uh flooding storm water and erosion. And then community health and well-being uh that is one that I am leading. We have some great partners here in Cook County that are

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joining us on that. uh northern forest resilience and then energy sovereignty. Um so we have our working groups. One thing that we are kind of in this year two really focusing on community engagement and so back in January we

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partnered with Grand Portages Trust Lands and Emergency Management Divisions to actually host a community engagement event um to really hear what are people concerned about. Yes, it's great to talk with the planners and the folks within uh tribal uh governance of what are you

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all doing, but it was really important for us to hear from just the general public of what are you concerned about? What are your hopes for the future? And so at the end of my presentation, I'll be uh sharing about an event that we'll be hosting here in Cook County with uh soil and water conservation in April.

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So, uh, a little bit of background, the climate adaptation partnership is, uh, a project within the University of Minnesota, uh, with and partners with extension to really look at climate projections across the state and really help, uh, decision makers decision

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makers make sure they're ready for the changes that are coming. And so we've got I've got great colleagues that are doing research just around climate science, but also specifically around hydraology and flooding, especially in the southern and western part of the state. Um, but really doing a lot of

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detailed forecasting for the region. So what has changed? Uh this is not going to be anything new if you've lived in the region for even 10 or 20 years, but uh this often doesn't mean a whole lot, but Minnesota's average annual temperature has increased by almost 3°

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in the last 130 years, which doesn't seem like a lot, but when we think about that could be the difference of 29 to 32° um of just the impact that it's having, especially on our winters. But you probably have also heard that most of our warming is coming in the northern

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part of the state and in the winter. And so you'll look and see that winter lows have increased by about 7 1/2° in the northern part of the state. Cook County uh about six and a half degrees which again um doesn't seem like much but when

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we're seeing that that's uh all winter long that six degrees can really have a huge impact on what our snowpack is doing uh what roads are doing for freeze and thaw >> ticks >> exactly for especially uh whether it just be ticks or parasites in general of

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what can survive throughout the winter uh things like um spruce budworm. Yeah, exactly. Um, northern m northeast Minnesota is also getting much wetter. So, we're having increased precipitation, both rain and actual snow. Uh, this is a kind of a tricky one

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because I'll talk about our snow pack is is really being drastically impacted. Uh, we're getting less sustained snow, but we are having storms that are producing larger snow falls. Uh, and that's mostly just because the amount of moisture that's in our atmosphere.

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So really what are the current impacts? And again if you live in the region uh you'll know this but some of the the most extreme ones are some of our summer flood events. So, uh, June 2024, um, had a drastic impact throughout the

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region, but even here in Cook County, um, with upwards of about three and a half, even four inches in part of the county having wash outs of the only in or out, uh, to the region, um, and even impacts on the the Pigeon River. Um, and

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so this is kind of like when we talk about uh, some of the greatest impacts to the state, I mentioned wildfire is a big one. uh summer temperatures, but flooding is probably going to be the the most drastic impact we're going to have in the next 20 years.

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Um so flash flood risk of course uh but we really noticed it uh this past summer about a year ago of that air quality. So it's it's really hard to plan for uh poor air quality when it's not even happening in our region. is happening

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well away from us. And uh and so this one is really what to do and it's more about kind of that education of of letting folks know like this is a day that we really have to change the way we're we're recreating the way we're going about our business. And unfortunately it is predicted to get

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more more common maybe not more severe but more common that we'll have air quality issues. as said, ticks. Uh, we're having new species of ticks showing up in the region and having definitely an increase in things like limes disease and I talked to some folks at the Department of Health for the

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state and they said that's their biggest concern for not just Cook County, but Cook Lake and St. Louis, Carlton, not as much. Um, was that increased uh tick disease. Uh, snow. Obviously, there's a lot of snow in the last few weeks here,

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but that sustained snow pack is definitely changing. and I'll show a little bit of what's projected in the region. Um, and then just fish population. Some are going up, a lot are going down as especially our inland lake temperatures are uh increasing.

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Um, definitely spruce bedworm. That's probably one of the biggest things I heard about in Grand Portage and I've definitely uh seen that here in the region as well. Um, killing a lot of our uh spruce and furs and then increased wildfire risk. um earlier ice outdates

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uh and not safe ice all year round. Uh that's a definitely something that one's pretty hard to predict, but I do have some colleagues that are looking at um winter lake temperatures and and kind of that ice thickness. Um and then transportation issues. Um so this is outside of the county, but that June

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2024 had huge impacts on rail and roads. Uh and I just throw this in because uh people often ask like why do you care Seth? So I grew up in Duth. Uh this is kind of a core memory is the 2012 flood uh that had a huge impact. Uh and I

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often use this image. Uh does anybody know what that is a picture of? >> The Doo Zoo. >> Yes. So that is the seal that escaped out of the Duth Zoo and was on Michigan Street. Uh the polar bear also got out of its enclosure, but luckily stayed

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within the zoo. But that one event had a huge hundred million dollar plus impact on Duth, but it also really made the city uh change a lot of things and really plan ahead. And so there's actually been two more once in aundred-year flood events in the region

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that have not had as much of an impact because of things like large sizing culverts and and really preparation. And so unfortunately sometimes those extreme weather impacts kind of make us wake up and say okay we do have to plan for things like that.

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Okay so really what is the future look like? This is the important part of the presentation. So again uh by the end of the century this is a long time away uh 70 years plus but we just like to talk a little bit about okay so that average annual temperature 49 approximately 49

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degrees. Okay, Seth, that number really doesn't mean much, but when we look at that historical average uh from 1995 to 2014, that's an increase of 11 and a half degrees. So again, we're getting much warmer in the summer and definitely much warmer in the winter, having an

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impact again on our recreation, the way we can utilize uh cross country skiing, snowmmoiling, but also a huge impact on populations of moose, deer, wolves, uh our entire kind of forest system.

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Okay, again, northern Minnesota warming much faster. And this is kind of the thing that I think um impacts me the most is that especially uh up in Cook County um even in the next 20 years. So 2040, the start of this kind of

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prediction cycle, it's not that far away. Um but we could have uh up to 20 less days of a 6-in snow pack. And when we think about just again that that cross country skiing, snowshoeing, yes, but also uh I've heard again and again

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that's a huge impact on our critical infrastructure. Um because if we don't have the snow pack and we do get a hard frost uh or hard freeze, it can really um mess with our pipes. Even the roads are really being impacted. And so when uh I was just talking to Stephen this

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morning of like, okay, we used to say that if we had snow by Thanksgiving, it would stay all the way through April. Now we're getting these huge snows. It's melting, freezing. We're getting ice in a region that that used to not not be a

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huge challenge. Uh so again, just to focus a little bit more specifically on Cook County, uh possibly up to 20 less days of snow cover over 6 in. And then uh by the end of the century, Cook County, so again, we're going back

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to 80 70 years from now, could have almost an inch more of rain in a two-day rain event, which sometimes this is like, Seth, why are you using this? Because that doesn't mean much, but just that inch of rain can really have an impact. Um, and then up to 13 more days

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that reach above 90°. And so this is kind of the really big thing because a uh a lot of people in this region are not used to 90°. Our infrastructure is not built. I grew up in a house that didn't have air conditioning. Um many

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buildings, newer buildings probably do, but many older buildings in the region don't have air conditioning and starting to have a bigger impact on public health. Um, I try to say that's a huge impact, but then when you look at the rest of the state down in the southwest and western

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parts, you're getting 60 to 70 more days that are reaching above 9°. So, I think it's important just to be aware that as we get increased temperatures throughout the country and the state, it's possible people will again continue to look to northeastern Minnesota as a spot where

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they can get away from that heat, whether it's moving there or recreating in the region. So, I always come to this point of like try not to like uh depress people, but it's really important to just be informed and also just know that um I

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think we're going to have changes. Some of them will be extreme, some in this region because the lake will not be as extreme as other parts. Um but just also to really think about what are we already doing? And that's I think one thing I like to come to Lake Cook and

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counties and then Grand Portage because uh there are so many projects and so many folks that are doing great work. Um and to be in an area that declared uh a climate emergency back in 2022, the first in the nation. Um it just is

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really great to talk to partners with like soil and water conservation public health that are actively thinking about okay we're going to have more freest tick disease and so it's not a as reactionary as parts of Minnesota that

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I've worked in are really like okay we just had this horrible extreme weather event now we're reacting. Uh Cook County definitely seems to be kind of looking ahead. there's always more work to be done. Um, but I I just like to say thank you all for the support that you're

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already putting towards this. Um, and just uh kind of give an example. This is again outside of Cook County. This is down in right on the edge of Carlton St. Louis and Jay Cook State Park uh from that 2012 flood uh highway 23 completely

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washed out. They now have put in a beautiful highway that they say will never be impacted. But again of just like really um I think that's what's great about this collaborative is that folks are talking across the region and so it's not Cook County having to do a lot of these projects on their own. They

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can learn a little bit uh hey this happened not that far away from an extreme flood event that I think there were about 12 ines of rain over the course of uh 24 hours. Um, but just again to kind of continue to have those those great conversations and I'll kind

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of end with I mentioned that um we are going to this Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative is partnering with Cook County Soil and Water Conservation to host that community engagement event. I know there's always so many wonderful things happening in Cook County, but just want to put it all on your radar that on Tuesday, April

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21st at Studio 21, we are having kind of an open uh community listening session. So this is an opportunity for us mostly to hear I will be doing a similar presentation just hey folks here's what we expect to happen but really an opportunity for us to hear what what are you concerned about in your region what

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are you hopeful for um and make sure that actually shows up in that plan so we again don't get to 2028 and a bunch of people are like uh you didn't think about this you didn't talk to us um there will be uh a free meal there will be some fun giveaways of of manomomen of

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wild rice And then one of the the things we're doing is also making sure that we're talking with folks with um emergency management and making sure that folks are just kind of more aware of those extreme weather events that are impacting. And so one of the things is we'll have uh I think everybody will get

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uh one of those Noah weather radios that I've really seen as kind of a really important thing when you're entering the boundary waters anywhere really remote. um as we've had more things like those do or extreme wind events and of course wildfires impacting the region. With that, I will wrap up and just say thank

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you again for the time and uh I know you've all got a busy meeting, but if there are any questions uh please let me know. >> We did have a major flooding a couple years ago down in the West End. Yeah. >> Took out um Township Road and so now we have MDOT working on resurfacing. So,

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I've been attending >> those meetings to help them understand the importance of culverts, >> ditching, that type of thing. >> Yeah. And I know that even um I think this past summer um just past Graham Ray, we were seeing some of those upsizing of those culvert projects. And

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so that's another great thing to see is I've been hearing how concerned pretty much the whole corridor is of uh Highway 61 and just being worried of what could happen uh in whether it be uh extreme wind event, a bunch of trees fall,

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wildfire, or probably the highest risk of that flash flood. >> Yeah. >> Cascade Bridge was within two inches of >> Y. So then we had to we're working on alternative routes how to get people to where they need to go the road down.

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>> Yeah. >> At least the grade is open now. >> Yeah. Yeah. That was a that was a scary situation. Um just informationwise in the last eight years Cook County has declared local emergencies five times.

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Yeah. >> Previous to that, they hadn't declared since two since the 2012. >> So, it kind of gives you an idea where we're heading. Of that five, one was COVID. The other >> Yeah. >> The other four were weather related. Two

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in the spring and two in the fall. So >> we do get them fall that washed away road in Grand Portage in 18 and flooded us here downtown in 19. So

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>> it's it's it's changing. You can tell it's changing. >> And I'm and I'm involved with dog sled racing. And dog sled racing has traditionally a very short season anyway. You wouldn't think so in

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Minnesota because here we live in Minnesota. We always got snow and we just haven't had that in the last. A lot of races have changed dates, postponed, tried to postpone, shorten their races. It it like like you said, it definitely

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has a an impact on economically, but I mean recreationally, too. I was going to say that is something we're trying to make sure we're incorporating in our plan as well as just that cultural impact. Um, it's something that doesn't always show up in like a planning

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document, but of the winter recreation being so core to the the tradition and the values of the entire region and making we're still figuring out exactly how that shows up in a planning document. But just that's why those community engagement events are so important of like really hearing what

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has been lost and what has changed, but what also some of those possibilities are. Yeah, >> I had just for your information I had Ruth's job before her she moved there before I moved to the county >> and I'm a tribal member so I always

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catch the tribal things but is that map you had on your first slide >> is the red line the actual 1854 seated territory. >> It is supposed to be. We have had a couple talks that sometimes overlaying some of those, but it should be very

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close to we had 1854 look at it. It was a map I think put together by somebody within GIS of St. Louis County, but it should be the exact overlay of the 1854 treaty and you it's you'll even see there's like this tiny sliver and I think it's Pine County. We are not

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working with Pine County, but the rest of the the 1854 treaty authority and they are uh part of our um leadership team as well. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you everybody. >> Thank you for coming here. >> Well, that's depressing.

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>> It's a very on that note engaged group. I've attended a number of those. Couple three maybe. I don't know. Um and it's really impressive to see the people that are there and just what they bring to the table is >> truth. They bring truth,

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>> fun experience and innovation and yeah just uh there's an inveness there too. And I think, you know, you look since 2022 when we declared the climate emergency, our highway department, invasive species, soil and water

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conservation district, um, >> firewise, >> firewise, um, public health and human services have all taken on initiatives as a result of that changing climate and the extremes that we're seeing.

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>> Well, good morning, Carson. >> Good morning. Thank you for bringing all these statistics. >> Yeah, >> it's nice to see updating though, too. >> Uh, yes. Yep. Uh, since I spoke with the HR, actually, there's new census data, so that's always exciting.

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>> Um, it doesn't change a ton in a lot of the data just because it's five-year averages, so you're just swapping out one year for another, but it's always good to have the most up to date. >> All right. Um, yeah. Are you ready for

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me? >> Yes, I'm doing >> perfect. All right. Uh, for those of you I have not met yet, I'm Carson Gorki. I'm the regional labor market analyst for Northeast Minnesota for the Department of Employment Economic Development, also

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known as DED. Um, I was up here in January talking to the HR about some of these same issues. Uh, I added in a little bit more of the demographic and workforce data. Um, but still a lot of the housing information. Um, so please

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ask your questions, but um, we'll dive right into >> Carson is a self-proclaimed numbers geek. >> I don't know if I self-proclaimed. Um, people have called me the data guy. Uh, so workforce is kind of my

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wheelhouse. Uh, labor market. So, you know, wages, employment, um, those type types of data, but working in a region where there's a lot of smaller communities that don't have maybe the resources like data shops that maybe

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bigger communities have, there's just been questions outside of workforce that have come my way that have just kind of incorporated throughout. Housing being the biggest one, child care being another one. Um, I know how to find census data, which is can sometimes be

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difficult if you've ever tried to locate some yourself. The census website is not the easiest to navigate. So, uh yeah, I've just kind of picked it up as I as I've gone, but labor market information office uh centered down in St. Paul part of deed we really try to inform both

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internally so DED legislators uh elected officials such as yourselves and um any organization or business or individual in Minnesota that can use socioeconomic data economic data to make sound decisions. So that's that's our role which I think works very nicely for a

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group such as county commissioners. This is what planning to cover today. uh starting out broadly with those demographic uh population trends uh a little bit on the industries uh in in the county um and then diving into those housing trends and characteristics and

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kind of how they relate to each other um housing market and the labor market because they are very very closely intertwined. uh population to start um I know some of you have seen these data before but you

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know getting a rehash I guess uh it's been relatively flat over the last four years so 2020 and 2024 um which I think if you read a lot of the news you might be surprised about um just like feeling like oh northeast Minnesota has been like the magnet for a

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lot of the migration uh postcoid um and that is true and we'll talk about that um but maybe not to the extent that the perception or maybe the like widely held perception uh conveys. >> It's all second homes. >> Second homes. Yeah. So that is

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definitely part of it because those people will not be counted in Cook County. Um and we will talk about that as well. Uh so yeah, 20 29 people which in any like larger county would be kind of a rounding error, but it makes a

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difference in Cook County, you know. Um, so you know, we make sure to to talk about it. Um, population rank out of 87. So pretty small county relative to the rest of the state. I'm sure you're all well aware of that. Um, kind of in the middle in terms of population change.

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And then the big one is, of course, the uh the age, median age, uh, 52.3 as of I think actually is 2024. Um that's uh almost 15 years older than the statewide median. Um and older than the

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regional median as well, but not the oldest in the state. >> Aken, thank you. >> Really? You guys know >> um >> you're close. Yeah, actually Northeast Minnesota has I think it, if I have this right, four of the top 10 oldest by

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median age in the state. So it's Aken, Coochie Ching, uh Itasa. Actually, no, I don't think it's uh lake and cook, which I don't know get some some award for that, right? >> Does that mean for the least willing to change?

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>> Uh I don't know that we haven't done the causation on that. >> Um okay, so 5,600 people approximately as of the last estimates. Um you can see how we compare to the rest of the region

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um over that 2020 to 2024 period. um a little bit slower than the regional um change um but actually not as big of a decline as Lake or Cuching. Cuching has been on like a long-term decline. Um

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>> I don't make it up to Cooching a ton just because I don't have a ton of great contexts up there yet. But um one >> do you know do you know how you interpret that? >> The like why it's declining so much. Um, a lot of it is some of the same trends

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that we see like in Cook like aging as well, but I think there's just more out migration. Um, which Cook does not have as as much. >> I mean, sometimes when you see change like that, it's due to an ind major industry that >> Well, paper has been slowing down.

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>> So, that's the big industry. Um but yeah, I I'd have to look at the industry data to >> because it's like here when we look at the significant percentage of our economic stability is based upon tourism >> and if you if you find that I mean you

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can look at Elely and if the significant contribution in the past had been mining and you can look at cooch in the paper and the logging industry when you have a major change in your industry then it doesn't attract people to the here because there's no employment

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opportunity. >> I certainly think that is part of it. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> I um I haven't visited there often, but it it's it's blown it's blown me away just because you can it's like palpable the the decline I feel.

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>> Um but it's also I feel like just ripe for opportunity because it's so beautiful as well. It's just they got a lot going for them but it's not going for them yet. >> Yeah. cross the border into Canada. >> Yeah. No, >> that is >> next level. >> Very depressed.

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>> Oh, very depressed. >> Next level that one. Okay. >> But then you've had gold mining up, you know, the way in that is significantly changed. So >> it it's a lot of it is driven by by the

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economic opportunities that exist. I think you find in Cook County that if you were to track our our migration, the uh population that earns money elsewhere and now has reached retirement age is buying property up here. So, it's

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not because they're drawn by economic opportunity as they are drawn to the region because of its aesthetic value. >> Yeah, it's a different uh kind of story there. I think also Cook, this is my own perception, has done a better job of marketing uh as a destination than

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Coochie Ching has too. Um but that's just my own take on it. >> Okay. Um this is from the uh state demographic center. Um so they do their own projections and two of the biggest inputs into that are of course how many

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people we've had in areas but then household size. Um, and for Cook County, I just want to point out the gray bar, the household size. Granted, this is from 2.17 down to 2.01. So, not like huge. Absolutely. Um, but when you add

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it up, you know, that that does play a role, especially in demand for housing. You know, you have fewer people per housing unit. Um, so you talk about, well, we have more housing units, how, you know, in the same population, so how are we still short of housing sort of

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thing. Um and this is one of the answers to that question and that has been occurring throughout the state but especially in um rural areas. Uh we talk about aging population. I'm going to talk a little about a little bit more because I think it's super

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relevant. So this is the change in the population by age group over the last 24 years. Um youngest at the top, u oldest at the bottom. And you can see, you know, just kind of how the bulge shifted

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from 35 to 54 24 years ago. And then kind of add 20 to each of those. And you see the the bulge down now at 55 to 74 soon to be pushing into the 75 plus. Um the under 45 population down 12%. Uh

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just mention that because that is the current half of the current workforce like the prime workforce we say 25 to depending on who you ask either 55 um and the the future workforce and then you add in oh I thought I had another oh

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I do have it it's on here yeah 65 plus is now 30% of the population and that is relevant to the workforce because when you hit 65 uh labor force participation declined pretty precipitously. Um, but then it also impacts the services and goods that

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are demanded by an older population. I just spoke with a gerontology a social geranttology course uh last week um about basically that and if you want I can share that presentation with you as well. It was like an hour and a half of

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talking about that one um trend. Um so this is just showing the projections again from um Minnesota Housing Partnership and the Minnesota Demographic Center. Uh the growth of the 75 plus population is occurring throughout the state. Um but you can see in in northeast Minnesota um it's kind

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of concentrated here uh in in the share that is going to be 75 plus. Um, and it's tough to read, but that dark blue means that we'll have a higher than 15% of the population in Cook and Lake and Cooching and Aken, uh, over 75 years old

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as of less than less than a decade from now. >> Heavy on wisdom. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there's there's value. You're saying it's changing. Uh, but knowing how it changes and how it impacts things is all I'm saying. I'm not saying good

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or bad. I'm just saying there's going to be more people over 75. Um, and that will have some impacts for the workforce and population and >> the types of services that are >> Yep. >> And the types of housing. >> My dad's My dad's 79 and he said he

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thinks he's not going to work this summer. >> Yeah. For the first time ever. >> Yeah. >> You know, >> it's not summer. Yeah, it can change. >> Uh, okay. migration is >> any idea how Aken gets in there? >> Aken. Yeah. Akin is a bit of a a

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interesting case. So Aken was the one county through most of the COVID period that actually added jobs and added to the labor force despite being the oldest by median age in the state. And I don't know if I have an exact answer as to

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like how that happened, but um yeah, it is it's a bit of a anomaly. Um, >> and there is there's a little bit of the like um, you know, lakes and resort kind of retirement draw.

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>> Um, so maybe Aken was just like a destination for that before a lot of other areas. >> Um, but I don't have the data to support that. Yeah. And cheaper. Yeah. More accessible to the metro area. >> Not that many distances there. >> The cost of living is a lot cheaper than

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say here. >> Yeah. Yeah. So >> and they've got Pete and we don't. So >> Pete, yeah. >> Um uh so migration is another um important factor when we talk about population. This is northeast Minnesota.

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So the 7count area um you can see the benefit coming out of um postcoid if you think that in migration is a benefit. So net positive migration both domestically in blue and internationally in orange. And we saw an increasing share of international migration into the region

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through 2024. But then we saw a pretty big step down in in um domestic migration into 2024. I imagine I'm predicting um just with what we know that 2025 will probably see a further decrease in um both, but um we'll wait

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to see what the data say. And then if you had to guess or haven't seen the slides yet, what would you think Cook looks like compared to this chart? >> Uh over 14 years. >> Yeah, I think it's the same period. Yep. >> More I guess more. So I'll focus you on

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the last four. >> Uh I thought we said it was flat, but wait migration >> and that that flat is that's net. though there could be ups and downs within that negative. >> I think the domestic would be up but the international would be down

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>> you know that is what I thought too. >> Yeah. Um and yes for the first two years coming out of COVID but then domestic he actually had domestic out migration the last two years >> according to the census population >> like seven and then you get here and

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you're like wait what are we doing >> people I actually know somebody I know somebody in >> this category here so I know somebody that came up and it's like oh yeah maybe we can't make it work >> you know the thing about statistics which are beneficial >> but it's understanding how to interpret

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them >> that makes n't applicable. >> And and so we could look at that and make our assumptions and the more that you refine numbers or you talk to people that are we'll say close to what the statistics represent, >> then you can apply it knowingly. And so

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you could say that if if you want to look at this, we've got two things going on. We have people that earn their wealth elsewhere and coming up and buying to retire or buying second homes >> and how they get reflected statistically

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compared to people who can no longer afford to live here that are leaving. >> Yeah. >> And and so understanding those two things >> tells you what that really represents. >> Yeah. Yeah. Knowing the context locally for sure because again the second homes

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is not going to be reflected in these data necessarily. Um but longtime residents that can't afford to live here anymore would be >> and we we see that and if the other numbers aren't in there then it's that's why I

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say >> you have to have all of that in order to say what it actually means otherwise you make your assumptions but you got to prove your assumptions are are correct. Yes, I I agree with that. And I think but coming in with my own assumptions thinking like, oh, Cook County has been

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booming with people moving here and then seeing that was like, oh, okay, there's something else going on. >> Healthare you get to a certain age, you not going to wait into the Twin Cities or >> available. Yeah, that's not something that I necessarily thought about. Yep. >> Oh, yeah.

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>> Yeah. Uh, okay. Um, and yeah, this is the the net again, putting those the two together. So natural change, which is births minus deaths, and then um net migration, so in and out. Um over the four-year period, again, that population

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change right around 2930. And um you can see that with just natural increase, it would be negative because we're having fewer people born in the county uh than than are dying every year on average. And then uh that migration isn't quite enough over the last four years to

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offset that. But I think this is an interesting summary. Again, you know, you have to know the context behind it, but it's a useful metric. Uh IRS has um migration data, which is very interesting and handy. Um there's

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some caveats to it, right? Like you have to have had a return um to be counted. Um but they they basically say you filed your return in in this county in one year and then you file it in another in another year. So they're able to track people that way or you file it in the

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same county you haven't moved. Um the big takeaways here is that you know well first of all it's only available through 2022 because it takes them a long time to analyze these data but at that point when we were seeing that big increase from previous uh information um we were

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seeing gains from a lot of places uh the biggest gain was from Henipin County which may not be a surprise that's where the most the increase of returns grew the most uh other places in the state but we did see growth across most areas.

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The only place we didn't see like an increase in the number of people or returns moving to the region was from the south. So, um but there weren't a lot of people coming from the south anyway. Um and then uh to the the point about

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second homes, but also the people that are moving here permanently. Uh so returns indicates that your residence is here um also had higher incomes. So the people that are moving here for second homes most likely have higher incomes, but so do the people that are planning

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to relocate here. Um also had um higher incomes. I think it was the returns. So the the average gross income per return for inmigrants in 2022 was 88,000 or 89,000. That's compared to 74,000 for

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non-migrants. So you know about 14,000 difference. Um, okay. Into the labor market stuff. Uh, so this is unemployment rates um on the left by what we call workforce service areas. So if you're familiar

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with the workforce development board for northeast Minnesota, has anybody sat on here been on the board? You've been on the board, too? Yeah. Okay. >> Yep. So that would be the seven county area outside of Duth. Um, which is this workforce service area. Um and northeast

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Minnesota tends to have higher uh unemployment rates especially in the winter um months just due to the seasonal nature of the industries we have here. We have an industry mix that is more cyclical. Um as you're well aware of in gramar and

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Cook County in general um duth is a little bit different from that. doesn't have as many peaks and troughs in the seasonal cycle, but does still kind of live on that um tourism seasonal cycle. So, this is the latest data we have for

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the uh end of last year. >> Look how high it gets in um say Aken County. >> Yeah, pretty high. So, you have a high big labor like the labor force grew there, but unemployment, you know, you've got 10% of the population. Part

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of that is the older population. Um the the the older folks that are in the labor market tend to have a little bit higher a little bit higher unemployment in that county, but usually it's much lower because the people that are in the

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labor market that are older are like we're working or we're just out of the labor market. That's the typical trend. >> This is the labor force which is defined as either employed, so in a job or having looked for work in the last month. That's what the the technical

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definition of unemployment is. So the blue line represents the total labor force in Cook County uh according to deed over the last 20 years. You can see it's been a kind of a slow decline. Um that largely reflects the aging

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population. So as you have a higher share that has passed the retirement age, the labor force tended to decline a little bit with that. You see co played a role um but the labor force has grown slightly in the last couple years. Um, unemployment hit a historic low in 2020,

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what is that two? Um, and has been growing since. That's a statewide trend, too. We've seen that kind of bounce back to pre-COVID times. Uh, northeast Minnesota, I think, is has unemployment now that is higher than it has been um in 2019. >> But I'm surprised a little bit because

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of the trends that the state demographer was putting out there for the labor force was not going to the age of it is not going to grow right for another >> I have to see that uh yeah I don't

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>> just because of the boomers >> yeah like staying in or leaving the labor force >> I'm sorry >> so you said that the projection is that the labor force age is not going to grow or the labor force itself >> the labor force itself because of the >> people

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yep and that um yeah that's a that impacts our employment projections like everything that we think about. >> I just would assume the unemployment >> Oh, would go down >> lower because of that. But yeah. >> Yeah. Uh I think that has more to do with the loosening the labor market than

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it has to do with the aging trends. >> Yeah. >> And when we talk about loose or tight labor markets, largely what I'm referring to is this ratio of job vacancies, so the blue bars to job seekers, which is estimated unemployed

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individuals. So you can see since the great recession in northeast Minnesota, we had 11 job seekers for every single job vacancy. Um and then that ratio, the black dot has come down to a low below one um precoid spiked a little bit

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during COVID and then hit even lower points when it was super tight. I don't know if you remember a couple years ago. Yeah. When >> it's like impossible. >> That's what I thought was for >> Yeah. >> for another 10 years. I just thought it was going to be that. I also kind of thought it was going to linger for a little bit longer, but it appears to be loosening up. Um, we don't have the job

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vacancy data for Minnesota yet for 2025, but all the national data are starting to point at fewer job vacancies and more unemployed individuals. So, this ratio that we have here, the black dots getting close to, if not over one, I would say in 2025.

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>> How how is that influenced by retirement? In other words, how is how is retirement reflected when you look at the baby burden population and the number that are moving out of the workforce? if that's calculated or if it

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skews the findings. The other portion of that would be to look at what percentage of the population is moving towards um subsidy >> meaning that they are no longer employed

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but they are living on assistance. >> Yeah, I don't know about the the latter part. Um I know that it's counted um but I don't know necessarily how it would impact this ratio. I know that people retiring that that creates job vacancies

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like that creates demand for labor. So you're going to have a lot of retirements in the next decade that are going to create job openings. So demand for labor. So >> So when you look at demographics, it's the same way when you look at demographics relative to birth. You can

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you could look internationally and see where you're seeing in in what we'll say ethnic groups or whatever that you're having populations that the birth rate is still ahead of the death rate. And if you look at our demographics that we're

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I mean the birth rate is completely dropped off the map relative to more people are dying than we're replacing. >> Are you talking about cook specifically or >> No, no. just talking as a as a general in the state of Minnesota. >> State of Minnesota. >> Yeah. State of Minnesota. And so and

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being on the on the job core when we were looking at what was happening with employment and and people that needed to retool or people that found that well gee I'll just go on benefits and then they they're out of the workforce. So when you look at what we're seeing in

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the workforce, the employment relative to the number of people now have shifted to being supported through some subsidy. That's that's an interesting comparison. But the if you look at the number in in

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recent years nationwide is it's accelerated and that amount of money that it costs overall to support the increase in that subsidy >> Yeah. is is unbelievable. In other words, we've seen such a a spike in

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that. >> Have you are you familiar with the the old age dependency ratio? Like it's one way of measuring that. So, how many individuals do you have over the age of 65 relative to the 16 to 65 like the working age more typical working age

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>> which is a social security issue who's funding it. >> Yes. and u may not be a surprise given what I've showed you before that the old age dependency ratio and cook is one of the highest in the state. >> So it's just it's just a way like to enumerate that uh relationship in and

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like need of an older population relative to the working population that ostensibly is supporting that. Yeah. Uh okay. Uh overall jobs. So this is the total employment trend and this will just be covered employment. we call covered because it's covered by

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unemployment insurance. So, this won't include self-employment, which is um a larger than average share in Cook counties. Yep. Yep. More people working for themselves. Um but this is one of the best data s most accurate data sources we have because it's comes from

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administrative data from employers filing their unemployment insurance um reports. Um jobs remain about 250 below the 2019 levels. Um which in a small county where you you know your your

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total employment is 27 2600 that you know 10% 9% of employment. Um it has grown slightly the last couple years but declined over the last year into 2024. Uh so there's depending on how you

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measure it um whether that you want to reach that 2019 level or whether you feel like there's a new um equilibrium. Um it seems like the new equilibrium has been kind of the case in other places in northeast Minnesota. Um Duth has not

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reached uh prepandemic levels. Uh there's only a couple areas I think that have. I think maybe Itasca, maybe Aken. So, and when you go into the quarterly trend, you can see the seasonal nature of employment in the county, there's not

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peaks like this uh in most other counties um in the state. And the Q3 employment, which is the peak here, is about 12% above the annual average time. So, you know, 12% more jobs in the the summer months. Just showing you what you

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already feel and know. Uh Q1 about 8.4% 4% lower. Uh don't and don't really need you to absorb all of the numbers in here, but you know when you want to look at it later, this is the industry data. Uh the sectors, the most recent data we have is

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for Q3 2025. Uh so doing like the four quarter average ending in uh Q3. Um top industries as was mentioned accommodation food services, public administ uh retail trade um is up there but accommodation food services is the

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the biggest one. Um those top three so accommodation food services which is hotels, restaurants, bars um public administration which is government and retail they account for about 55% of all the jobs in the county covered jobs. I I

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had looked at a a statistical report last night and it was Cook County economic vitality as percentage of jobs 2024 and the breakout was tourism, arts and recreation uh was 23.1% of our workforce.

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>> Okay. And the uh uh resource extraction which could be mining, farming, >> logging, things like that was 2.1% which is the lowest. >> And the self employed that you referenced earlier was nearly 30%.

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That's 296 to onethird of our population. >> What's what's the source of the that report that you you have? >> Um you know normally I would put it down on this. The other thing is that government is 31.5%.

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>> And if you look at the percentage of jobs in government according to the 2024 report, uh we are 79 uh well, Cook County is eight. There's in other words, there's 79 counties that

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have fewer people share >> in government. Yeah. >> But the number one is Manomomen. >> And that's 53.8% 8% and if you look at let's see I took lake as a comparative lake is 22.6 y

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>> cook is at 31.5 >> part of that is um tribal governments so tribal government will be counted under public administration too so you see a lot of the counties that um that have like >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. And so when you're looking at the public versus the private, I mean, you would have your your schools,

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you'd have your hospitals, you'd have your tribal, and so when you put all of those together in there, that that's how that figures. >> Yeah. It depends on how you count it. So, um, like healthcare, the way we count it is what the the like business establishment does.

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>> Yes. >> Um, so a hospital, we counted under health care and social assistance, even if those people are employed by a government. Yeah. >> Um, and public administration is more like what happens in the courthouse. So,

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it's not necessarily um like it's not the educational part like the educational services will count the teachers even though they're employed by the district, a government agency, right? >> Uh they'll be counted under educational services. And this is an important point in in breaking out statistical

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information is that if you break them out by category as opposed to umbrella underneath >> that, you know, to understand that um because then then that information could be applied more strategically. But in the case when you're just saying how many are funded through tax dollars.

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>> Yeah. Yep. Yep. And you know, I could break it out by actual government jobs, too. Yeah, >> this is just >> sure >> which sector. >> Yep. >> But it Yep. You just you need to know how to ask the question, which hopefully I'm helping you.

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>> We have um um poor patrol, we've got the Forest Service, we've got DNR, you know. So, >> yeah. And rural areas tend to have a higher share of um public administration or government jobs. You know, especially in northeast Minnesota, like think about all the roads. we still have a lot of

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roads like more road mile per resident that has to be maintained. Um so I mean that's just one example. Um >> the the average annual wage is also very interesting that 47,000 is our Cook Countyy's average

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>> covered employment. Yep. >> 2025 >> 2020. Yeah. Like the fouryear uh the four quarter average. Yep. And that's lower um than the regional wage but only by like a thousand or 2,000. So it's not like that much lower.

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>> And so and then if we apply the household size could we say the average household wage is >> we do have the median income. Yeah. Household income which is better measured by the Census Bureau than via

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the wages. Yep. >> Great question though. Uh this is just how it's changed from 2019 Q3 to 2025 Q3 by sector. The big loss there, it's hard to read, is accommodation and food services. Um hit especially hard by

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COVID. Um arts, entertainment, and recreation as well. Retail trade. So those three on the left, it's kind of like the core of the tourism sector in Northeast Min or in Cook County. And then the big green edition over there is actually real estate rental and leasing.

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Theory is that some of the uh jobs from the far left have actually just moved to real estate rental lease like short-term rental as opposed to hotels. So maybe not a full loss of those jobs, more of a transfer from one sector to the other.

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You >> know how that compares with? Uh >> I do not know how that compares to be interesting. you I mean when we make our assumptions as to who's comparable if you look at coochie you look at Aken yeah and you could look at lake >> um but again the nature of the economy

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that exists in those areas but uh I think Aken County uh is is comparable on a lot of different things >> I haven't made that direct comparison but it would be interesting to see um yes and so many of the tourism

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oriented sectors down. Um what's some other point I wanted to make? Highest paying sectors, healthcare, public admin, finance, finance at um is insurance is relatively small. Um but healthcare, public administration more prevalent.

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Um yes. Okay. The migrant workforce. Um I don't think you can talk about Cook County necessarily without talking a little bit about the migrant workforce just because it plays such an important role um especially in the season hot busy

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seasons. Uh H2B and J1 primarily um is everybody pretty familiar with the program. Okay, great. Um much larger share of the workforce in Cook County relative to pretty much the rest of the state. Uh we have H2B data through 2026

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like even through the beginning of 2026. The J1 data which used to be available I couldn't find. I think they took it down from their website. I sent them an email and they were like they gave me a very boilerplate response. So I was like okay you don't have it. I got it. Please file

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a FOYA request. I'm like no thanks. I don't have four years. Um yeah. So uh not surprising most of it's in accommodation food services. Um and then the occupations, food prep and serving, building and grounds cleaning and

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maintenance um and personal care. So just those tourism supporting jobs. Um and if you add so assuming that J1 is kind of the same level that it was in 2022, maybe a little bit lower because you've seen the pretty big drop off here

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in um H2B. um could be as high as about 10% of the workforce if you add H2B and J1 together. So pretty big uh footprint. Okay, transitioning into housing um

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housing in the workforce or housing in labor market. It's tough to read there a little bit, but this is asking this is the Federal Reserve asked I think two years ago like how much of a challenge we're asking um job seekers how much of a challenge uh are each of the following factors to your job search and

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employment goals. The top ones are kind of employer oriented. So like the job doesn't offer enough money. That's kind of been the main challenge for as long as I've been in this job and I'm sure a lot longer. um lack of wage offer on job postings, that actually has started to

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change with paid transparency um laws. But down in the bottom with other obstacles, uh affordable uh affordability and availability of housing, uh where jobs are the big one. Um child care is is down there as well.

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And then asking um respondents what are the significant barriers. So kind of a similar question but a little bit of a different tack to it and affordability of uh and availability of housing is again up there in the top top responses.

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Um and I will will argue that um rural demographic trends also um like aging population they impact as we've talked about the labor market and housing dynamics kind of at the same time. like as you're exiting the labor force, maybe you're looking to change or downsize

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your housing at the same time. Uh so in some ways it's kind of like a double whammy or the impacts are just happening at the same time. Um so rural areas are kind of feeling those I think more acutely. Um, and then when you think about the housing availability, um, jobs like if the if the house

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housing is not near where the job is in a rural area, it's kind of like, well, you can't just go to the suburb over and look for housing. If it's not there, people are not going to move there. And we've seen that over and over again. A lot of employers I've talked to um trying to get folks to move up to the

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region have had that exact experience. uh they they agreed to the job and then they looked for a house for a couple months, couldn't find it, and said, "Sorry, I'm actually not going to be able to accept that offer." And I just added the the 15% of households are 65 plus year olds living

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alone. Um I might need to update that, but as of like a year or two ago, that was the case. Um in that social geranttology class, I updated some of the data and that number is actually decreasing. I would have thought it would have been increasing the number of 65 uh year olds that are living alone,

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but is going the opposite direction pretty clearly. >> What do you attribute that to? >> Um I think it might just be like a either necessity or like a cultural change. Either you can't afford to live alone um or the like loneliness and you

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you see the value in community. I think it's probably a combination of the two. We have um so uh my wife and I manage section 8 housing and in this community >> a lot of the people that are coming in are people that can no longer

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>> manage you know like physically >> the maintenance issues everything else and so it's the downsizing component. >> Yeah. >> You see and they're trying to do it while they're active to make that transition because it makes it easier. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And they would technically still be

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listed as living alone if they're in a unit in a like apartment building. >> Okay. >> Um, so that would be more like roommates >> would be the case there, >> which is even more interesting to me. >> Yeah, roommates. I haven't heard yet. I haven't heard that. >> I I don't know how else to explain it,

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but yeah. >> Um, okay. So the northeast Minnesota just kind of a summary slide on the housing characteristics, how many units we have, what share are single unit. We have a higher share of single detached units in northeast Minnesota relative to

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the state. Um occupied versus the state also a smaller share only about uh threequarters are defined as occupied which we'll go into some detail on. And then uh the age of the housing um relative to the state uh we have a

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higher share um that have been um built since 2010 which is interesting relative to the rest of um Minnesota. And then the median value is quite a bit lower um almost about 100,000 lower than um the state. And then the median rent is also

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a bit lower. >> That that's northeast. >> That's northeast. Yeah. That's not right. Oh yeah, Cook County. Here you go. >> Okay. Yeah, >> thank you. >> Um, so some things same like relative northeast Minnesota to the state, but

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big thing is the median value um is actually higher in Cook County than it is in the state. Um, and total units that actually went up. So the five-year, you know, the five-year average just moved up a year and that total housing

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unit estimate moved up, but uh mostly from additional vacant units. So you've got like an increase in housing units um but more so vacancy um vacant units and as we'll talk about, they're not like

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just sitting there empty all the time, but second homes essentially. Where does the where do the rent values come from? >> Yeah, so this is always a a question that comes up. >> Uh so there is a formula that the census applies and I don't know it off the top

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of my head but almost always people think it's too too low like it doesn't represent >> and part of it is because this is four five years in the past. >> Sure. >> So especially when you have costs housing costs rising really quickly it's always going to look like it's too low.

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Um, but it's like typical and I think it is for a twobedroom. So, it's not >> there's really too low. >> Way too low. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, I've just shown you what the uh the data are, but every time I put that up there,

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>> it's it's always tell you is that HUD >> Yeah. >> HUD sets a rate based upon their evaluation of an area. >> Yeah. And so right now for a onebedroom, HUD will not, in other words, you can't

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charge a rate higher than $888 for one bedroom. That's HUD sets that. >> Yep. >> And and my response to is that your your figures are are not reflective of what the reality is in Cook County. >> Yeah.

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>> Yeah. And I think the the HUD values are probably a little bit more uh timely than the census ones, but they're also informed by the census. So >> yeah, they kind of play off each other it's it's too broad-based in its analysis is the problem with it.

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>> Yeah, they have formulas that are >> and then the other thing is that so you can get a posting it'll say this is how much you can make in order to qualify for subsidy. >> Yeah. and that rate when you look at in our area and then what the rent is that

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somebody can make that amount of money and and qualify based upon that standard. How much money do you make? But when you look at our rate, those two work together and it cancels out a lot of people which makes it just not affordable. >> And then you get into this thing called

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the benefit cliff. I don't know if you've heard about that. So they have an incentive to not if they want to keep that housing to not make more than whatever that cap is. >> So you have people come in and they say, "Well, you could do it if you want to quit one of your jobs." Yeah. >> And all we're doing is we're pushing

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>> people into not being resourceful and then they become a burden on society, which is a true reality. If you try to adjust things so that you're no longer a contributor so that you can live off of the benefit. I would I would push back just a little bit on the that specific

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scenario. >> Yeah. >> Because people are going to act rationally, right? They want to keep their housing. >> So, they're just acting they want to keep their housing and they have to decide, do I want to, you know, get this raise at work and lose my housing, especially in a county like here where you can't find

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>> housing system. I'm not going to say it's the individual. >> No, I agree. The system. >> I agree. I agree. >> Because if I look at it and I say you're going to have a quit a job otherwise you won't qualify. So we force the person to have to quit a job in order to qualify and that's >> or take a job that pays lower or Yeah.

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>> Same with healthare. >> Yeah. No, it's it's just >> uh those that vacancy. So let's talk a little bit more about that. Um northeast Minnesota we talked 20 22% vacant units.

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Um so what do we mean when we say vacant? So when they're doing this survey it means that the housing unit is vacant. um if no one is living at the time of the interview. So interview now can be like you get a letter right if or you get uh an email. So in the past it

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used to be like they would call or go to the house but um and entirely occupied uh by persons that have a residence elsewhere. So that would also count as vacant and that would be the primary situation in Cook County or northeast

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Minnesota. Um, and then units that are not yet occupied are classified as vacant. So, if they're just built it or someone just moved out and someone's about to move in or is about to rent, things like that that be counted as vacant. But those are all really small

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shares relative to just it's a seasonal recreational second second home. And you can see how Cook stacks up the highest share among the the counties. Over half of the housing units are deemed vacant in >> Virginia. That's the middle of St. Louis

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County. >> Oh, that's white. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, that would be No, I think that's Mountain Iron. >> Okay. >> Yeah, Virginia is a little bit further. And then Hibbing is the bigger one right on the border of St. Louis. >> So, I mean, when you take that

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statistic, you look at say, so what does that tell us? If if those um if the tax rate of those vacant homes is higher than the tax rate of the people that are in residence, then it it's not affecting your your revenue.

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>> Mhm. >> Um but it it can affect >> the >> affect a lot else a lot of things locally. But if we look at it and say that for instance that vacant homes or short-term rental or whatever are at a

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lower rate than others then >> then it could be yeah >> then it would be a big thing. So it's it's understand >> is that the case >> the correlation it it it should be I know we're working to try to do something with the homestead and with our short-term rentals so that

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>> where that money goes. >> Okay. That's about where that money goes. Whether it goes locally or to the general fund. >> Okay. >> And currently that money goes to the general fund. >> Okay. >> For the school district. That's >> that's what we're trying to do. >> Interesting. Okay. Um and then the

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seasonal breaking it out the seasonal uh recreational vacancies. The purple there is the uh seasonal, recreational or occasional use. Um so this is the share of your vacancies broken out by type basically. Um Cook is

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only behind Aken. So your your point of comparing to Aken. Yeah. >> Um they got a lot of vacant units down there as well. Um but yeah, this is just like the the big thing that jumped out at me when I was looking at the housing in Northeast Minnesota. It's kind of the

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story. Um, and then this is that uh number of occasional recreational or seasonal units um by census track. And I think I

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need to maybe I need to update this, but it's about uh 1,600 in the dark purple, 445 in the Grand Marray area, and then like the Grand Portage is about um 1,000. It's like the breakout by census

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track. Oh, there you go. >> So the impact I mean in these last two slides I mean if you draw your assumptions is that we have seen I mean if you want to look back and you want to see the shift in how many you know from

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homestead to what we've got right now seasonal recreational. Yeah, >> that what happens is if the people that are buying the seasonal recreational uh have earned their wealth elsewhere and then they are buying up the homes that would normally be the residential

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homes that people can't afford and then the young people generationally can't afford to live here. They got to move out to get and earn their wealth elsewhere. Yeah. And what that does, that drives the price up. And so when somebody wants something up here, they

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will make an offer that can exceed what the asking price is just because they want it, but they got the money to do it. And we see that we're ushering out what's happening with our typical residential homes. >> Yeah. There's a widening gap. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Yeah. That becomes problematic.

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>> And you know, how you manage that is the decisions you make. But >> I think this is kind of what you're talking about. you've seen over the last decade and a half um just the and as has value as a proxy for that for like price

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um the median home value grew 42% uh from 2012 to 2024 but 39% from 2017 to 2024 so it basically hockey stickked in the last um 7 10 years and >> I think it's like 420

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>> yeah now >> yeah so even more so yeah again this is a 5year average, right? >> Yeah, it is. >> Uh and median gross rents have actually not grown as much as that. Um which is interesting maybe because partially uh >> what's the year of this?

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>> This is 2020 to 2024. So >> I mean with our new rental properties, if you want to look at that median right now, that would be higher. >> Yep. But they rose on this same measurement scale 28% relative to 39% in

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and owner occupied. >> Um this is the breakout by um um so owner occupied units by how much the oh is it value? Yeah value sorry.

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Okay so value of the owner occupied units um by um bracket. And the the big one to point out is you've got higher shares of the 100,000 to 200,000 but then also over 500,000 in value which

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that's the the trend that you kind of were pointing out before >> previous slide that you had. It would be interesting to see by county uh I mean we'll say similar county Aken certainly being one of them um but in

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tourist heavy counties the increase in that median price of home >> for sure. Yeah. >> Where the percentage we compare to those other counties that have the similar type of >> Yeah. >> You would see the same same trends.

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>> I'm sorry. Could you repeat the >> what this is? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's me. Sorry, I was uh jumbling it. Uh it's so it's the estimated value of owner occupied housing. So, owned housing. >> Um and this is by like >> by the bracket. Yeah. >> Okay.

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>> So, >> um and then I have Minnesota in the green there just to show the the comparison that there's a higher share in the 100,000 to uh I think it's actually yeah, we'll say 200,000. So

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like relatively affordableish housing depending on the quality of of the housing there. This that's not shown in here. And then much higher uh share of the million or more um housing. So that's just showing the like the type of

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unit that is available here relative to the state. It's just another way to look at the like bifurcated housing market that seems to be occurring. >> Yeah. You know, the problem with that is that I mean, just at first glance is that we're not necessarily comparing

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apples to apples. >> Well, when you're comparing to Minnesota Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm just saying that somebody comes up here and they think, "Well, I've got this much money. I'm going to buy a house and oh my goodness, this is what I get for this amount of money." That's the problem. >> Yep. >> Or they say >> that's why

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>> this only buys me a septic system. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I mean it it could not go as far like the median value is higher than the statewide. So, if you have like a I don't know like a similar like a fourbedroom house in Roseville or

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something like that like it might be more expensive to buy that same house here. I would argue. >> Oh, yeah. Well, that's my point. >> That's your point. Okay. My point what you get for that same amount of money in Cook County and that's why people are surprised. Oh my goodness. Okay,

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>> that's what I got to pay in order to be here. So then they pay it. >> I'm on the same page. But the median household income is uh about 16,000 less. So you've got like same price of housing as the rest of the state, but the income is so that's where that gap

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is starting to form or is and is getting wider. Um okay, uh median home value a little bit more. I think this is maybe my last median home value slide. Um the one that I wanted to point out, we've already showed the median home value is actually

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this one which I showed at the HRA. So this is um average residential homestead um estimated market value in the blue in Cook County and then the residential homestead effective tax rate. So the effective tax rate has actually gone

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down uh since 2020 um as the value has grown hockey stickwise the last four years to 424 what you said. So this kind of points out that

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phenomenon you were talking about earlier. um you have a higher like they're paying taxes like even with these uh occupied partly part of the year units, right? So they're still paying taxes to the point where the actual tax rate has gone down for

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everybody. So that's one benefit. >> Yeah. The only thing is that you cannot separate tax rate and median price. >> Gotcha. >> And so if you take a low tax rate times a high >> Yeah. And that's you're going to end up pay more. >> This is more this Yeah. So this is more to your point, this is more a reflection

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of a high price than it is or high value than it is of a >> people paying absolutely lower. Yeah. Yeah. Mortgage rates starting to creep down slightly. Um but still around 6%.

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Um but you know a few percentage points can make a difference in freeing up people that weren't going to sell their homes or move. But um it would be really helpful I think for even longer perspective because they are exceptionally low

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>> for >> Yeah. So if I showed >> 2008 or something >> yeah 10 or 12 more years. >> Yeah I chose the fiveyear. I could have chosen the full one but it's just easier to see the five year. But you're right. >> This is this is super helpful. I just personally I don't I mean I think about

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that but I I haven't had that visual like >> what >> but I also I'm not sure how many especially maybe firsttime home buyers or like new home buyers are looking like oh my rate is only 6% when it was 14% when my parents bought their first house

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like >> I don't know how many people think like >> oh I got a great deal like no it's it's it's 6% and four or five years ago it was 3%. I think that's probably a more common comparison. >> Got a buddy who has 1.9.

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>> What? >> He's not selling right. >> Well, see, that's the thing. Yeah. So, it can play a big role in um supply as well. >> Uh this kind of confusing graph is just trying to put together the main drivers

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of affordability. So sales prices, taxes, property insurance, income, and how they interact with each other to affect affordability by metro area. It's just kind of a fun um visualization. So income has actually been rising to the um relatively fast in the duth metro. So

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this isn't Cook necessarily, but it's just showing something regionally. Um so income has actually been a pull up on affordability, so making it more affordable. and more recently so have mortgage rates, but then pulling it down

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have been taxes, uh, property insurance and sales price. So, I see. >> So, lower is less affordable, higher is is more affordable on this chart. >> Um, and this is just a more simplified

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version of that. It's just median income, how that's been growing. Um, and then the qualified income. So that you're paying 30%. So if like the median household income is 30% of the median sales price at the time. That's basically comparing those two. You see

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blue line is getting further and further underwater relative to what would be needed to purchase the median home price. You don't want the you want the blue line to be above the orange line. It becomes unaffordable for most if the

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blue line is below the orange line. >> Well, that's Duth, Wisconsin. That was a large. >> Yeah. Yep. Duth, Wisconsin. Yep. Uh into the supply. And I'm I'm over my time, aren't I? Um Okay. I'll speed up to

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>> um Okay. So, this is uh authorized housing units, and this is private. So, this won't include the new uh HR developments. Um, but you can see kind of the the longer term trends in Cook County and Minnesota. Cook County has

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followed the state in terms of housing authorizations, which is interesting to see. So, those are kind of statewide trends. Um, housing burden. Um, the the main takeaways here. So, the housing burden as as defined by the Census Bureau is if

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you're spending more than 30% of your household income on housing. So that's rent plus utilities like associated costs. Uh 35% sorry. Um and Cook actually has a smaller share than other counties but above the northeast average

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um for owner occupied. 20% of owner occupied um housing or units are deemed to be housing burdened. So, one out of five. >> Your statement lower on this chart. It's

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lower than Aken, but that's the only one. Yeah. >> If I look at 87. >> Oh, yeah. You're you're right. Yep. Sorry. Um, Atasa, I think at the last measure and maybe Lake. Um, so that might have switched. I think Lake used to be higher than Cook

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as well, but good catch. And then this is renter occupied. Maybe you could help me understand a little bit why Cook is so much lower in terms of renter occupied housing. >> We haven't I don't we haven't had it.

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Plus housing that could be used for short-term rental. >> I mean is used for short-term rental not long-term. >> So it's just they're just so few. Is that >> I was going to say compassion. >> Yeah. Well, that' be a good reason. >> What do you What do you mean?

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Uh personally, we've kept rents lower to try to encourage families to be there even though the market would demand more. >> Yeah. >> Um and we can be more selective for who we'd want in there. And so, >> you know, single moms

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>> and um >> are you talking in the private sector? You talking like in the >> you know businesses that have rental properties? Well, both will be impacting this, but if you have a sizable share of folks that are doing as you say that'll

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show up in these data say it have it would have to be other than >> Yeah. And so I think there is some of that but then also businesses that own rental properties that want for employees. Yeah. They need to keep that

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there so they can have their employees but the employees have to afford it. So it's just a strange there too. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> No, I think that's >> those are things that I did not think about. So, thank you. >> Sort of Johnny Cash's song. >> Which one? >> Company store.

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>> Ah, gotcha. Yeah. This is how the burden has changed over time. So, blue is renters the share of renters households that were um you know paying more than 35% the share of owners with mortgages and orange that have paid

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more than estimated 35%. and it's actually gone down um relative. I think that has more to do with the the income rising than it has to do with um you know lowering costs of housing. Uh but I still was surprised to see it come down.

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Um I mean renters is about the same as it's been over the last decade plus. Um but how like those with mortgages has come down that could be rates. I don't remember exactly what rates were in the 2013 2017, but

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um yeah, and one last thing on the housing uh burden. So, this is the housing costs. Uh you can see that those without mortgages have the lowest costs on the right. How that's changed over time. uh

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it's jumped up quite a bit from 2013 2017 average to the 2020 2024 average. So that would include like your utilities and everything, but as you said, it's probably higher across the board. Yeah. In reality.

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Um and then I've got two more slides. So Lake Superior Area Realtors represents a larger area than just Cook County, but includes uh Cook County. Um they have a measure of affordability too, an index which is super handy and it has gone down. That is the the big takeaway to

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pretty historic lows as they've as long as they've been tracking it. Um so it's tough to see but under 100 means uh that the median household income of the area is insufficient to qualify for the median price home. So it's a kind of a more local version of that other chart I

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was showing you with the orange and blue lines. And then median sales price um has been like quite a bit of fluctuation as it's gone up, but the trend has been up um in median um sales price.

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>> That's a periodic fluctuation. Like that's very interesting. >> It is kind of interesting. Yeah. >> When to sell and when to buy, right? That's >> Yeah. I would I if I had known this existed when we were buying our house and like I don't know, let's wait a few months. Uh >> uh but you can dig in. They actually

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have these reports available to the public, which is pretty cool. I don't know if they know that it's available to the public, but I bookmarked it their Google Drive, so I guess it's it's open. Um, but it's just cool to see. And then the the kind of summary uh slides here

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is just uh the affordability gap. The um Minnesota greater Minnesota um partnership put together this a couple years back. So like all the I say add 10 plus percent to all these figures to make it you know relevant to today's costs. But the top is okay the

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affordability for a new labor force. So that's the entering the workforce they want to buy a home right like what they can afford with their starting wages. That's the blue bracket. The or the purple bracket is what the typical cost of a starter home would be that like

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range. Notice that there's not a ton of overlap there. That's kind of the the point. And then what it costs to build a starter home. Um the the takeaway is that those three things are not there's no overlap there. So um how can you afford a starter home? You know,

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vanishingly few families can. Um and then low rents. So the median rent in a rural area, which you talked about, you talked about. And then the rent needed to support a multif family housing development. Um there's a gap there too.

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And then on the bottom talking about the cost of renovations. Um so you know you what you appraise the old home that hasn't been maintained for you know decades and what that appraises for and then what it would cost to get it up to

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standard. Um and that also would would maybe not be economical. Um so I really like this this graph. It's, you know, a good summary of the the challenges facing rural housing development. >> Can we go back? What's that lack the bottom one? Okay.

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>> Uh, yeah. So, that is basically saying that the lower values of substandard homes like homes that have fallen into disrepair. >> Um, and then the cost of renovations makes them a poor um, investment for families and create significant challenges for banks looking to lend on

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this type of loan. >> After this, it just seems So you basically say like the cost to to renovate a home to get it to a point where the the family would want to live in it is not like financially feasible

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from a bank's perspective from family. Right. Yeah. It's not even doesn't even make sense to >> that's t this is talked the one on the bottom the bottom one is talked about probably the least of these three. It's more so like building starter homes or

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can they afford rent in in an area? Yeah. >> Yeah. It's up the top one too. Just that green versus like why would you build a home if it's going to be worth less than >> Yeah. Well, and just what can people pay to afford that? Like if you're building

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a starter home, your audience is people that are entering the or your your target market is people that are entering the workforce, but they make this range. Mhm. >> And housing costs and cost to to build housing is up here.

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>> So, how do you bridge that gap? >> We're blood, sweat, and tears. >> Yeah. Love >> the word tiny comes to mind. >> Yeah. Uh and then I promise this is actually my last slide. Um this is just another way to look at it. So, this is

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the Cook County estimated typical housing cost. So on top um I'll have to update this again but 76,400 is the like median household income right needed to afford a median value home and then the 37 income needed to

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afford the median two-bedroom apartment. These are based off the HUD numbers so we can talk about whether that's appropriate or not but those are the numbers that I I had. Um and then the the uh median wages for um occupations in demand in the region and some that I

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thought that were more common in like a tourism focused economy like Cook County. So you know cashiers, nursing assistants, uh maids and housekeepers and cleaners, elementary school teachers, you know, people that are um elemental to a lot of communities. Um

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and how some of them just don't match up. So, if you're a single mom, elementary school teacher, you probably won't be able to afford a a medium value home. Um, if you're a single parent home health and personal care aid, which is going to become more and more uh

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prevalent. Like, that is a very in- demand occupation. Those median wages aren't going to support even the two-bedroom um rent that we think is low uh too low already, you know. So, um, it just shows the gaps.

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>> Yep. So, thank you. Uh, sorry that I went over time. I always have too much. So, >> it's really >> appreciate it because we're always saying, well, what are the what's going on in the other counties? What's going on in Aken or what's happening? So the

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demographics >> and if you have like specific questions, you know, you want to know what the median household income or price is for, I can easily pull that and send it to you whenever. So if you're, you know, that comes up in a subsequent meeting. Yep.

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>> Do your housing statistics include grand party? >> Yes, they should. Yeah. The the caveat is um the response rates vary. So the response rates um are higher for like the white population. For a native

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population, response rates are a little bit lower traditionally. So that might impact the accuracy of the data. That is uh I'm reading a paper on that right now. >> Mike, how many um do you know generally

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because you have like Picnic Bay and that's all um owned by by the by the community. I mean, it's not individual things. And there's a lot of housing there and people pay rent on that. >> Rental units. Yes.

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>> Those are rental units. How many uh residences are owned by um band members? I mean, it's real tricky because it's it's not just a string. You know, that's why I kind of ask

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because I think you're probably not getting a really accurate demographic >> because like a correct me if I'm wrong, like a if your grandmother dies or your your your mom dies, you inherit the house if you

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were if you choose to take over a payment on it if it's not paid off yet, right? And it's the band that uh finances >> these this housing to start with. So >> yeah,

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>> you can't have all those numbers in this. >> No, probably. I mean, probably not. Yeah. >> So I can I can throw it all kind of weird at you. I'm going to retire this year from the county. I'm a travel member. I own a home in Grand Portage that can only be sold to >> a member of

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>> another van member. Therefore, I'm gonna leave a job open for the county, but I'm leaving the county and selling my house. >> That'll just throw your number. >> There's all sorts of Yeah. exceptions. >> Thanks for throwing that. >> No, that's a good point. Like these are

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like summary statistics, right? >> Yeah. Um so and and yeah there's going to be margins of error, there's going to be exceptions um depending on different populations, >> but often times they are the best like that we have so we can compare to other

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places. Like that's probably where the value is the largest because the the like errors that we experience in this area should also probably be experienced in some other areas too in Minnesota. So the comparison of a county to a county

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is where these data probably have their best use. Not so much like $880 for gross rent like what >> it's Yeah, it's more in the comparison by over time and u space. >> The other thing in statistical things is

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if you can if you can make comparatives without having to have narrative to explain the differences that's the best scenario but still it's better than nothing. And then the narrative helps you understand the nuance that exists between the comparison. >> Yeah. I mean, I always like to have some

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thoughts as to why a number is changing or, you know, um >> Well, that's statistical. It's not just to have the numbers. It's to understand what they're telling you. >> Yeah. Well, and to understand at the end of the day that there's people and families behind all of them, too, which >> gets lost, I think, when you look at

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spreadsheets as much as I do. >> Well, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. Appreciate >> it. Thanks for inviting me. >> What's that? >> I couldn't imagine having to compile that information for you.

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>> I started taking Google Analytics.