States this year awarded tax breaks to businesses, touted worker-training programs and even poached jobs from each other to boost their economies and create work for the nearly 12 million Americans still unemployed.
Oregon, for example, inked a 30-year tax deal to keep Nike from relocating. Wisconsin created a new “work-share” program that allows employers to cut workers’ hours rather than give them pink slips. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry launched a high-profile campaign to entice employers in Illinois and California to move to the Lone Star State.
Four years after the recession officially ended, most states have bounced back fiscally, but their economies still aren’t generating enough jobs for the millions of people who are still out of work or under-employed.
During the 2013 legislative session, states dangled big incentives to lure or keep businesses in their states, but many made sure the packages required recipients to live up to their promises, such as creating a certain number of jobs. Such safeguards are called “claw-back provisions,” and about three-quarters of nearly 240 state subsidy programs examined in a 2012 study included them.
“States are getting really savvy about giving these fairly significant economic incentive packages,” said Sujit M. CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst at the Council of State Governments. “States have been aggressively going after companies and getting back money that was given to them,” in cases where companies failed to fulfill their promises.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor
via Stateline – States Rely on Tax Breaks, Work-Share to Create Jobs.
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