TEDCO Announces Findings of Economic Impact Assessment of Tech Incubators

The Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) has announced the results of an economic impact assessment of Maryland's technology incubators. The report shows that the state's incubators continue to have a significant and positive impact on the state's economy.
Commissioned by TEDCO, the economic impact analysis studied Maryland's 18 technology incubators and four proposed incubator projects. Key findings from the analysis include:
- Current and graduate incubator firms employed 14,044 people in the state (5,374 direct employees and 8,670 indirect employees).
- These jobs contributed to $845 million in annual salary and benefits to Maryland citizens, and resulted in total gross state product contributions of $1.2 billion.
- The incubators contributed $104 million in state and local taxes, and increased state output by $2.7 billion per year.
- Maryland has the potential to support additional technology-based incubators.
- The average annual pay for technology jobs is $75,000, more than 60% higher than the statewide average annual wage of $46,000.
RTI International, a North Carolina-based research group, performed the economic impact assessment of Maryland technology incubators and analyzed state capacity for additional technology-based incubators.
Barriers faced by incubator graduate companies were investigated, as well as effective policies to mitigate these obstacles. The study also assessed the relationship between TEDCO's incubator funding and the economic impact analysis during a single year of funding (which was fiscal 2006).