Sustaining Strong Communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a place with significant assets including natural beauty, productive farmland, and an iconic seafood industry.

The region also faces significant challenges. Some of these would be familiar to residents of any other part of Maryland, such as wages that barely keep up with the cost of living and leave too many unable to afford the basics. Other challenges stem from the region’s distinctive geography and development patterns, like the long distances many residents must travel to get to a hospital.

To ensure that Eastern Shore communities and their residents have the chance to thrive, state and local policymakers should focus on three central challenges:

  • Supporting Broad Prosperity: While the Eastern Shore’s labor market has shown improvements in recent years, it is characterized by higher unemployment and lower wages than other parts of the state. Partly as a result, families in the region are more likely to struggle to afford the basics. A central goal of state and local policy in the region should be to enable more residents to access family-sustaining jobs.
  • Sustaining a Healthy Shore: Many Eastern Shore residents have inadequate access to medical care. All five of Maryland’s counties with the fewest primary care physicians per capita are on the Eastern Shore, and the region is home to more than half of Marylanders who live at least 15 miles from a hospital. Policymakers should work to ensure that all Eastern Shore residents can get the care they need, when they need it.
  • Facing the Climate Change Present: While the threat of climate change looms over our entire state, it is already a dangerous reality for many of the Eastern Shore’s coastal communities. The region needs thoughtful solutions that balance community preservation, public health and safety, and long-term sustainability.

nemployment on Maryland's Eastern ShoreState policymakers as well as local governments on the Eastern Shore must make important choices in responding to these challenges. They should start by recognizing that Maryland’s regions depend on one another and our state can only thrive if all residents have the support they need to succeed. The state and local governments should focus on proven strategies to sustain strong communities on the Eastern Shore.

  • Invest in education and training. A well-educated workforce is one of the strongest determinants of economic growth. Investing in education and training from early childhood through adulthood will strengthen the Eastern Shore’s economy in both the short and long term. The state should enact a robust education reform package based on the Kirwan Commission’s forthcoming recommendations, including both increased state investments and a requirement that counties fully fund their share of education costs. Policymakers should expand access to community college through free tuition and by ensuring that students are able to afford necessities. Finally, the state should continue and strengthen successful approaches to workforce development.
  • Protect and strengthen investments in economic security. Federal investments in economic security bring enormous benefits to the Eastern Shore, but unreliable federal support threatens the families who depend on these investments, as well as the communities whose economies they support. The state should develop plans for protecting families in the case of damaging federal cuts. The state should also strengthen economic security by ensuring all families can keep a roof over their head and see a doctor without going into debt.
  • Pair evidence-based support for businesses with protections for workers. Too often, Maryland’s economic development policies rely on costly and ineffective approaches like corporate tax breaks. The state should instead invest in customized business services like training, credit assistance, and technical assistance. Whenever the state directly supports businesses, it should maximize the benefit to communities through strong worker protections such as living wage protections, sanctions for companies with labor standard violations, and well-designed incentives for employers to go beyond minimum legal standards.
  • Create good jobs meeting the region’s health and climate needs. There is plenty of work to be done on the Eastern Shore—and there are many workers willing to do it. Increasing health care access, caring for aging residents, and adapting to climate change will all take work. In some cases, workers would benefit from greater investments in education and training so they can build the skills this work requires. In other cases, the skills are there but capital is lacking. The state should build the required skills base through education and training and create high-quality jobs to address pressing needs. It can do so either through direct public employment or by partnering with community organizations. In either case, strong worker protections are needed to ensure our investment creates family-sustaining jobs.
  • Improve state and local tax policies. Maryland’s state and local budgets reflect where our priorities lie. Effective responses to the challenges facing Eastern Shore communities will require increased state and local investments, which is possible only with a well-functioning revenue system. The state should clean up and rebalance its tax code to close corporate loopholes, ensure wealthy individuals are contributing to the services we all rely on, and stretch low-wage workers’ earnings. These reforms will have the added benefit of making Maryland’s tax code more equitable for the Eastern Shore. Finally, counties that have rigid tax limitations on the books should repeal those limitations, enhancing their capacity to invest in the pillars of the modern economy and respond to emergencies.

Read the full report