Jason Donofrio
Arizona PIRG
All but four states now post at least partial information online showing which companies are receiving economic development subsidies. But the quality and depth of that disclosure varies widely, both among and within states. Three-fourths of major state development programs still fail to disclose actual jobs created or workers trained, and only one in eleven discloses wages actually paid. The best disclosure practices are found in Illinois and Michigan, but even their scores would be near-failing as report card grades. These are the key findings of Show Us the Subsidized Jobs, a report issued today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center based in Washington, DC.
“Aside from a handful of holdouts, state governments now accept the idea that the public has a right to online data about which companies are receiving taxpayer-funded job subsidies.” said Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy. “But with unemployment still high, Americans need to know how many jobs and what kind of wages and benefits their taxpayer investments are generating.”
Show Us the Subsidized Jobs is the third in a series of reports Good Jobs First has produced on subsidy transparency since 2007. In that period the number of states with at least some online disclosure has doubled from 23 to 46. The District of Columbia has also embraced transparency. Arizona regularly discloses information about two of five major economic development programs. Over the course of the reports, Good Jobs First has raised the bar in its rating criteria, reflecting rising public expectations about government transparency and improving web technology.
“Transparency by itself is no guarantee that a subsidy program is accountable or effective,” said Good Jobs First research director Philip Mattera, principal author of the report. “But it is the foundation for any meaningful assessment.”
“It’s critical to show the public what they’re getting for their tax dollars, especially when tax money is given to private corporations,” said Serena Unrein, public interest advocate for Arizona PIRG. “This study shows how important it is to disclose what the results are for Arizona’s economic development subsidies, and the public just doesn’t have enough information about that right now.”
Show Us the Subsidized Jobs rates the reporting practices of 246 key state economic development subsidy programs on how well they disclose online information such as company-specific award amounts, job-creation and wage-rate figures, the geographic location of subsidized facilities, and details on the recipient company and the project. Programs are also evaluated in terms of how easy it is to find and use the online data. Each program is rated on a scale of 0 to 100, and the program scores for each state are then averaged to derive a state score.
The report’s key findings:
“With most programs still failing to disclose actual jobs created or wages paid, taxpayers cannot even begin to weigh costs versus benefits,” LeRoy concluded. “Taxpayers have the right to know exactly what they are getting in return for their economic development investments.”
Details on each state’s program scores can be found in online appendices at www.goodjobsfirst.org/showusthesubsidizedjobs.
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