The Great American Jobs Scam

What Hacker News says

1. pchristensenApr 2024
   I don't know the specifics, but I'd bet a quarter billion dollars that they didn't add clawback provisions. "The Great American Jobs Scam" goes into this is great detail - https://goodjobsfirst.org/gajs/
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2. KennyBlankenJan 2023
   The Great American Jobs Scam, which was written almost two decades ago, covers how these handouts never work out in favor of the state/taxpayers.

   https://goodjobsfirst.org/gajs/

   The biggest receiver of welfare in the US, aside from possibly defense contractors, is Walmart. They pay their employees so little that most of them are dependent upon social programs, and Walmart had dedicated staff for helping employees apply for those programs.

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3. pchristensenNov 2018
   [disclosure - I work at Amazon, but have no internal information whatsoever.]

   This is over 10 years, so ~$5k/job/yr. For reference, economic development incentives for corporate relocations are commonly $20k-75k per job, and often for jobs paying much less than Amazon is expected to pay HQ2.5 employees. Also, I believe that Amazon will receive tax rebates based on the number of jobs created over time, which is better than many packages that don't have any accountability, limits, or clawbacks.

   I don't think economic development incentives are a wise use of funds, but this one is notably only for the scale and publicity. People are so mad because this the first time most people have heard of the practice.

   For more information (and many much worse examples), see the book "The Great American Jobs Scam" - https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Jobs-Scam-Corporate/dp...

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4. pchristensenNov 2013
   Most of these incentives cost more than the jobs they provide, they do not encourage businesses to make decisions they wouldn't already have made, and any promises in exchange for tax benefits are rarely even followed up on.

   Read http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-American-Jobs-Scam/dp/157675... if you want to boil your blood about this topic.

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