The Two Economies of Faribault
This is Part 4 of a 5-part article series drawn from my March Fireside Chat. Listen to the full fireside chat at samuelftemple.com/twoeconomies
By and large, I have not seen the work being put in to make this community more affordable, safer, or healthier for everyone. I have seen the work being put in to increase economic activity, which has an indirect benefit for all, but does not help those who are suffering.
I have seen Faribault’s City Council and the Rice County Board of Commissioners bend over backwards to accommodate businesses. They will pull every lever and access every fund possible if it will support developers. They have been quite creative and shown real ingenuity in that effort.
I understand why! Economic activity is the lifeblood of a community. Faribault needs more housing, a diversified tax base, and places to work and shop and enjoy life. Supporting a strong economy is an important job of local government.
But the business economy is different from the personal economy.
Here is what the personal economy looks like in Faribault right now. More than half of all households in this city — 53%, according to the 2024 Rice County Community Health Assessment — fall below the ALICE threshold. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. They don't have enough to get by, but they're not eligible for most social safety net programs because they don't make little enough. These are not unemployed people. These are not people who have given up. These are working households that cannot make ends meet no matter how hard they work. More than half of us.
The personal economy is not measured in quarterly profits or shareholder value. The personal economy is whether you can afford to raise a family in the community you live in. Can you buy quality, healthy groceries? Can you afford to see a doctor when you need it? Can you afford daycare — or afford to have a parent stay home? Can you safely walk to a park where your kids or grandkids can spend time together? Can you afford to retire? Can you afford to age in place? Are there transportation options for when you can no longer drive? Are you one or two paychecks away from having to live in your car?
The majority of Faribault is asking those questions everyday-- and the answers are almost always negative. 53% can’t afford the basic necessities of food, shelter, transportation, and healthcare. So they either have to cut down on those basics or go into massive debt just to survive. One in eight Faribault households does not own a car. When you hear elected officials talk about economic development without talking about transportation for that one in eight, ask yourself who that development is actually for.
The average Faribault worker earns about $59,280 a year — close enough to afford the average market rate apartment, if one were available. But there are almost none available: the market rate rental vacancy rate is 2.5%, the affordable vacancy rate is 0.6%, and subsidized units have no vacancies at all. Homeownership is out of reach entirely. The September 2025 median home price in Faribault was $317,920. To afford it, a buyer needs a minimum annual income of $97,320. The average worker earns $59,280. That gap is nearly $40,000. When was the last time you got a $40,000 raise?
The downstream effects of ignoring the personal economy show up in our public health data. Rice County has roughly 490 residents for every one mental health provider — compared to 300 to one statewide. Our opioid prescription rate is higher than the state average. Three in five homes in Rice County have dangerous radon levels. And in the southern part of the county — where Faribault sits — fewer than half of residents say they always feel safe, compared to nearly 80% in the northern part of the county. These are not coincidences. They are consequences.
These are issues rarely discussed in City Hall or the County Board room. And I recognize they cannot be entirely solved locally. But I have seen how creative these bodies can be when it comes to supporting international corporations and savvy developers.
One example is the Rice County Housing and Redevelopment Authority. Unlike the City of Faribault HRA, the County HRA is not made up of community volunteers with a few elected official representatives. The Rice County HRA is made up entirely of our elected officials: they are the Rice County Commissioners.
The Rice County HRA is legally authorized to levy nearly two million dollars annually for housing purposes. It has been levying 12% of that authority for seventeen years, while every single program it runs has a waiting list. Remember the 0% vacancy rate of subsidized housing? That’s one of the programs the County HRA isn’t fully funding. For the owner of a $250,000 home, the difference between what we levy now and the full authorized amount is about $40 a year. I’m not denying that it would cost something. But the majority of my neighbors are hurting and an additional $40 is very small compared to the scale of our need. Yet the County Commissioners haven’t seen fit to be creative with their power to benefit everyday people.
These are the same County Commissioners who approved $48.86 million in bonds for a new jail. They know how to spend money when it's a priority to them.
The scale of the challenges facing our communities are not the problem. The problem is the will to address them.
Some local leaders would have you believe there are a thousand ways to use tax dollars for the benefit of profits. But for the benefit of everyday people? Well, the only real option there is to keep taxes low.
I would like to see more of that creative energy directed at the challenges of everyday people. And I happen to believe that when we do that, our local small businesses will flourish too. Small business owners are a lot closer to the working poor than they are to the investment firms that own our major employers and landlords.
It is not a choice between spending taxpayer dollars to support business and spending taxpayer dollars to support people. That is a false binary. The real question is who our local government is willing to put in the work for.
Just in the last month, the Faribault City Council unanimously approved tax increment financing for a new 76-unit market rate apartment development downtown. The developer said plainly the project would not move forward without that public financial support. I am not against the project. I am pointing out that the same creativity — finding a public tool to make a private project viable — has not been applied to the needs of the majority of Faribault. The tools exist. The will to use them for working people does not.
The most common pushback I’ve received from local elected officials is that I am being divisive. If trying to improve your community — or calling attention to a shortcoming — is divisive, then what you are seeking is acquiescence, not unity.
Unity means embracing our neighbors in common cause: the betterment of our community. Even in disagreement about how we get there, there must be open discussion. If starting a discussion is seen as an attack in itself, that is an admission that the status quo is defended by those in charge and that they are resistant to our community's improvement.
Frederick Douglass put it this way:
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its mighty waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.
These are not radical ideas. They are the ideas of people who loved their communities enough to say hard things out loud.
If you find yourself nodding along — if you've been frustrated by the gap between what your local government does and what your neighbors actually need — you are not alone, and you are not wrong. I'd like to hear from you. Reach out at samuelftemple.com, and sign up for organizing updates while you're there.
— Sam Temple
