Promised Jobs Not Created

Tribune-Review has a story about the state actually going after companies that received taxpayer funding to “create jobs” but did not do so.   There has been almost no standard for “creating jobs,” even if theoretically this worked, as there has been no effort to assess “new” jobs (or even those moved from other states or from taking over other businesses).

Of course, these types of “economic development” programs ignore the jobs lost because of higher taxes needed to pay these grants. As Eric Montari of the Allegheny Institute points out,

If we’re talking about really spurring growth and enterprise, we should be looking at taxes … as a whole, not just this incentive to this particular company,” said Eric Montari, a policy analyst with the Allegheny Institute, a Castle Shannon think tank.

Noting Pennsylvania is near the bottom among states in job and population growth, Montari said: “If we’re true to the claim that these things improve the number of jobs and improve growth rates, as big as these grants are, we should be way above where we are.”