Good Jobs First Blog

Washington, DC: January 22, 2020 – Public pensions are seriously underfunded in some states, and the situation is not helped by the fact that states continue to give huge tax breaks and other subsidies to corporations. Such subsidies often exceed the amount a state owes to maintain its pension obligations.

Opportunity Zones (OZs), the new federal tax break for investing in specially designated census tracts, are estimated to cost the federal treasury $1.6 billion a year. But because all but a few states tie their personal and corporate income tax systems to Uncle Sam’s, OZs will also have a direct and negative impact on state revenues.

Washington, DC, December 10, 2019 -- A new compilation of business-misconduct lawsuits filed by local prosecutors in the nation’s largest cities and counties finds that California accounts for far more cases than any other state. Since the beginning of 2000, local California prosecutors have brought 441 successful suits against corporations, representing more than three-quarters of all such cases in the 50 biggest cities and counties of the United States as a whole.

Washington, DC, September 16, 2019 – A new compilation of lawsuits filed by the attorneys general of the 50 states and the District of Columbia finds that since the beginning of 2000 there have been 644 in which AGs from different states successfully cooperated on cases involving allegations of corporate misconduct. These investigations, which usually resulted in civil settlements in which the defendants did not admit guilt, often brought together AGs with divergent partisan affiliations. The total penalties paid by the companies was $105.9 billion.

We spent this summer collecting data for the latest Subsidy Tracker update, which now is posted online and available to users. This update consists mostly of local data; however, we also added state data and four megadeals.