Good Jobs First Blog

Just four days after I mentioned that Boeing did not repay the billions it had already received from the 2003 Washington state subsidy package, the World Trade Organization approved EU retaliation for these subsidies in the form of $4 billion per year of tariffs on U.S. goods.

Boeing is ending production of the 787 Dreamliner at Everett, Washington, and moving it to its newer facility in North Charleston, South Carolina. The company says this is the most efficient approach to reducing production of the jet from 10 per year to six per year in response to falling demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. Moving production to South Carolina means that more than 1,000 Boeing workers at its Everett plant will likely lose their jobs as they no longer have a model to build.

Good Jobs First talked with education expert Dr. Kendall Deas about the role corporate incentives and subsidies play in South Carolina, which in fiscal year 2019 cost the state’s public schools $423 million – a $99 million increase in two years, according to our analysis. The findings raise a key question: do newly arriving companies that get big tax breaks pay their fair share for the public services they and their employees utilize?

The recent economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many companies to reduce staff or close operations. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires companies to give 60 day advance notice before a mass layoff or a business closure occurs. Here are the links to online WARN Act pages.

Public school districts in South Carolina lost $423 million in property tax revenues during the 2019 fiscal year, due to tax abatements county governments granted to corporations. That’s an increase of $99 million – or 31 percent – compared to just two years earlier, according to a new Good Jobs First report released today: “The Revenue Impact of Corporate Tax Incentives on South Carolina Public Schools.”