This City Struck Gold—by Paying Workers To Move There

Faith Langevin and Matt Costanza uprooted their lives in Atlanta for Tulsa, OK, drawn by a $10,000 grant for remote workers. The city’s modest investment to attract more skilled professionals is paying off—each transplant has helped fuel more local jobs.

Langevin and Costanza are among more than 3,500 migrants from across the U.S. who have made Tulsa their home since the recruitment program Tulsa Remote first launched in the fall of 2018.

The economic impact from the relatively low-volume initiative has been impressive, generating thousands of new job opportunities and delivering a fourfold return on the program’s operating costs, according to experts.

For Langevin and Costanza, the 800-mile journey from Atlanta to Tulsa started in the winter of 2021 with a random Reddit post that talked about how Tulsa Remote was offering grants to telecommuters willing to relocate to the heartland city.

Speaking to Realtor.com®, Langevin admits that she knew next to nothing about Tulsa at the time and was “expecting tumbleweeds” rolling down city streets—but she and Costanza, her then-boyfriend turned husband, decided to take the plunge anyway.

“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll try another city, and we’ll keep going until we find our home,” Langevin recalls thinking then.

Three years later, the couple remains in Tulsa, living with their two dogs, Missy and Dexter, in a sprawling home they were able to buy within months of their move—and they have no plans to go anywhere else.

“We found our community,” says Langevin. “I think we became better people.”

What is Tulsa Remote and how does it work?

More than a year before everyone’s lives were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic and “work-from-home” became the new norm, Tulsa launched Tulsa Remote—a uniquely ambitious program aimed at attracting highly educated workers to Oklahoma’s second-largest city, which does not have major research institutions or a mature tech sector of its own.

The move wound up being prescient, as remote working soon surged in popularity across the U.S.

Since then, Tulsa Remote has emerged as an engine for job creation, with many newcomers starting their own businesses in town and hiring locals at a rate of 60 jobs for every 100 new residents.

Perhaps most unexpectedly, the program’s economic return on investment for the local population has been more than four times as much as it costs to run the program, according to a new study by Timothy Bartik, chief economist at the nonpartisan W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

In other words, for every $1 spent, Tulsa Remote gives $4.31 back to the city’s residents, with a large share of that amount benefitting low-income households—a level of return Bartik admits he found “surprising.”

“I think it’s a success story,” says Bartik of the recruitment program in an interview with Realtor.com®. However, he tempers his praise by noting that while Tulsa Remote has had a meaningful impact, its effect on a midsized city of 400,000 people should not be overstated.

Bartik, who published a new study on May 20 analyzing the economic impact of Tulsa Remote, says that what sets it apart from the numerous similar programs that sprouted in communities across the U.S. at the height of the pandemic is that Tulsa Remote is backed by significant resources and bolstered by careful planning.

“It is certainly one of the largest and most generous programs and seems to be set up in a pretty coherent and quality way,” says Bartik. “The program is not just sticking $10,000 on a stump and saying, ‘come and get it.’ They have a whole process for trying to figure out who will really benefit the local economy.”

Another thing that Tulsa Remote is doing, according to the economist, is making sure that the newcomers are fully integrated into the community.

“They have a whole process of support services, of trying to get people involved so they stay, so they get involved in local neighborhood groups and civic groups, etc.,” explains Bartik. “They have a whole process of trying to encourage Tulsa remoters to maybe start up their own businesses.”

The worker incentive program is mostly funded by the nonprofit George Kaiser Family Foundation, the charitable organization of the Tulsa-born oil tycoon George Kaiser, president and CEO of GBK Corporation, whose personal net worth currently stand at $15.2 billion, according to Forbes.

The program targets fully employed professionals, especially in the high-tech industry, who have the flexibility of working remotely, who do not live in Oklahoma, or work for an Oklahoma-based company. 

Tulsa Remote has designed a competitive application process to attract members who will make the strongest impact on the Tulsa community: Out of the more than 50,000 people who have applied since 2018, just over 3,500 ultimately made the move.

In order to be considered for the recruitment program, eligible candidates must undergo multiple rounds of interviews and screenings, including a background check and income verification.

Those who are picked are offered $10,000, provided that they move to Tulsa and stay there for at least one year. In addition to the cash—which is disbursed in the form of either monthly payments or a lump sum—if the participants choose to buy a home locally, they are also given a three-year membership to a sleek new co-working space, access to health and wellness benefits, and invitations to community events and clubs organized by Tulsa Remote.    

The overarching strategy is to encourage program participants, dubbed Remoters, to make Tulsa their home for the long haul, not just a temporary stopover.

Based on figures made available by Tulsa Remote, that approach has paid off, because 96% of program applicants have successfully completed their required year in Tulsa. Among those, 70% are still living in Tulsa.  

Newcomers give more than they take

Using an econometric model he designed, Bartik, the economist with Upjohn Institute, calculated that Tulsa Remote is six times more efficient at creating local jobs, at $36,000 per job, than typical business incentives, such as tax credits, which cost on average $218,000 per job created. 

He attributes the difference to the flexibility of remote workers, who can settle anywhere with an Internet connection. Businesses, on the other hand, are less nimble and face numerous logistical and economic hurdles when considering relocation.

According to Bartik, Tulsa Remoters make locals’ lives better in several different ways: being, for the most part, high-earning professionals, they spend more money at local shops and restaurants. They also start their own businesses, creating jobs for their fellow Tulsans, and they boost the local tax base by more than they use in services, he says. 

Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel adds that attracting skilled professionals can foster a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, which is something that Tulsa has been striving for in its drive to become the latest tech hub.

“For cities with some tech momentum, this can create a virtuous cycle: startups attract more talent, which leads to more startups,” he says. “This phenomenon is exactly what made Silicon Valley into what it is today.”

Since the launch of Tulsa Remote, the city’s labor force has grown by about 10%, according to Krimmel. The city has consistently posted low unemployment, sitting in the mid-3% range today, which is virtually flat with the 2018 level— and slightly below the national rate.

The obvious downside to an influx of affluent outsiders into a midsized metro is that it increases property values and puts upward pressure on the city’s housing market, which could negatively impact households living on fixed incomes. 

But Bartik points out that thanks to Tulsa’s flexible zoning laws, the city has been able to successfully accommodate the newcomers without sending home prices through the roof and squeezing out the locals. 

In the fall of 2018, the typical home in Tulsa cost roughly $213,000, according to the latest data from Realtor.com. By May of this year, that figure has climbed to $330,000, representing a 55% surge—and outpacing the 44% national increase.

As of 2023, the typical household income in Tulsa was $65,561, or about 80% of the national median. But the good news for the city’s inhabitants is that Tulsa has long scored above average on housing affordability, meaning that a large share of the residents can afford to buy a home in town. 

Looking at the city’s housing inventory, Tulsa experienced a drop-off in the number of for-sale homes even before the pandemic. The city’s roster of listings has since somewhat recovered but remains below 2018 levels.

Bartik warns, however, that in a city with major zoning hurdles hampering new construction, a worker recruitment program like Tulsa Remote could potentially do more harm than good.  

Krimmel agrees, explaining that none of the benefits generated by a program like the one in Tulsa could outweigh inadequate housing.

“If a city can’t accommodate population growth, it just gets more expensive—for everyone,” he says. “The winners in this game will be the places with zoning flexibility, developable land, and the political will to build. The rest will run into housing shortages and affordability issues fast.”

Reddit post and one-way ticket to Tulsa

Justin Harlan, managing director of the nonprofit Experience Tulsa, which includes Tulsa Remote in its portfolio, says that whenever he is asked for advice by someone in economic development in another city, he tells them that the $10,000 incentive “is only the beginning.”

Harlan tells Realtor.com that Tulsa Remote strategically evaluates candidates to find people who are community-minded and who can actively contribute to the city’s economy. To inspire the newcomers to do just that, the program goes out of its way to help them become part of the new community. 

“Cities can’t just turn on a program and expect people to come,” he stresses. “Potential remote workers can’t just imagine what it might be like to live in a city, they have to believe they found ‘their place,’ where they can make friends easily and feel a part of something bigger.”

For Langevin and Costanza, the Tulsa Remoters from Georgia, that is exactly what happened.

Their adventure began in the winter of 2021. Both were living in Atlanta and working remotely—she in analytics and he as an account manager—and looking to “take a chance” on a new place with a lower cost of living.

Langevin tells Realtor.com that she and her husband were mulling several options, including Chattanooga, TN, and that initially Tulsa was not even on their radar, until she came across the fateful Reddit post about Tulsa Remote.

“I had never even thought about Tulsa,” admits Langevin.

Langevin says she applied to the recruitment program “not thinking that anything was going to come of it,” but the decision ended up changing her and Costanza’s world, as she puts it.

Between Christmas 2021 and January 2022, both Langevin and Costanza were accepted into the program and offered a chance to travel to Tulsa for six days to get to know the city. They ended up staying eight days, because they say they kept meeting new people and getting invited to events, including a soccer match organized by Tulsa Remote.

“I was not prepared for skyscrapers, and music, and art, and a ton of sports in the community,” Langevin says, remembering her first time in Tulsa. “It really, honestly, blew me away.”

In May, the pair of self-described “nomads” packed their bags and journeyed halfway across the country, arriving in Tulsa to a welcoming reception of coffee and muffins arranged by an acquaintance whom they met during their reconnaissance trip in March. Langevin says that woman, whom she affectionately calls her “Tulsa mom,” was their only real link to Tulsa at the time.

But it did not take long for the couple to find their group.

Langevin, who is an avid runner, snagged a running coach job just 12 hours into her first day in the city while volunteering at the Ironman Tulsa event. Before long, she was making new friends and joining clubs—something she says she had a tough time doing in Atlanta where “everybody was busy.”

Costanza concedes that it took him a little longer to fit in, mostly because he spent the first months drawing unfavorable comparisons between Tulsa and Atlanta.

“It took me a couple of months to take a look at it and completely change my frame of reference,” he says. “And one of the things that I noticed very quickly after I made that change in mindset was that the barrier entry for anything here is so incredibly low.”

Costanza, who is a keen amateur hockey player, fulfilled his dream of officiating local college games—something he says he “would not have gotten a chance to do … in Atlanta, full stop.” He also got into volunteering, which in Tulsa did not entail having to jump through hoops.

Enamoured with their new hometown, and with their circle of local friends steadily growing, Langevin and Costanza decided to go all in on their Tulsa experiment: Four months after moving, they closed on a renovated $330,000 home boasting five bedrooms and a generous backyard for their two dogs.

Costanza speculates that a similar home would have cost close to $1 million in downtown Atlanta.

“We really wanted to put down roots and have something to make our own and call our own,” says Langevin. “So we don’t see us leaving anytime soon.”