Government subsidies do not lead to the creation of good-paying jobs

Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy appeared on the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and talked about how government tax subsidies often lead to the creation of low-quality jobs instead of good-paying union jobs. He also shed light on why datacenters do not benefit communities like people may think.  

LeRoy explained how federal, state and local governments are spending a large amount of money, upwards of $95 billion each year by his calculations and giving it to corporations as subsidies to create jobs. However, the jobs created by these companies are not good, union jobs that ensure workers earn a decent living. In many cases, the tax abatements do not contain language to force the companies to create jobs that meet certain wage requirements such as full-time employment, inclusive workforce development or pre-apprenticeship programs. Instead of good careers, these companies are only creating low-quality jobs.

For more than 25 years, Good Jobs First has worked to educate the public on how public funding is spent and how such actions hurt Americans. They now have a subsidy tracker on their website to better educate the public and politicians about who is applying for this funding and to expose corporate control of tax dollars. 

LeRoy also noted that AI-based datacenters are popping up across the country, but there is little knowledge of what companies are receiving public funds. While the building trades benefit from these projects through Project Labor Agreements or Community Benefits Agreements, the full-time workers hired to operate these datacenters make less than advertised. He alleged that datacenter operators rarely hire women or minorities and very few of these jobs are union.

For more information on this subject, listen to the podcast: