Good Jobs First Blog

Covid Stimulus Watch, the website created by Good Jobs First to help monitor CARES Act aid to corporations, has just grown tenfold with the addition of 5,000 entries involving healthcare providers. The new entries are an enhanced version of a recipient list posted late last week by the Department of Health and Human Services for the Provider Relief Fund created by the CARES Act.

The uproar over the participation of larger companies in the Paycheck Protection Program is a sign that the country will increasingly confront a broader issue about the massive Covid-19 relief effort: does every company deserve assistance during a crisis that affects all parts of the economy?

Amid continuing controversy over some of the companies receiving federal financial assistance under the Paycheck Protection Program, a new website launched today makes it easier to see the accountability track records of companies getting help through the PPP and the other programs authorized by the massive CARES Act.

Good Jobs First – a non-profit, non-partisan research center focusing on economic development accountability – today published the second half of a 13-state report “Putting State Pension Costs in Context.” The report found that Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, and Vermont together spend more than $17 billion per year in development subsidies and tax breaks for corporations, about five times the states’ yearly pension obligations.

It was only a few days ago that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that nursing homes will be required to notify residents and their families when coronavirus cases have been discovered in a facility.