Good Jobs First Blog
Despite Wide Public Interest, Most Finalist Governments Hide their Amazon HQ2 Bids
Washington, DC—As Amazon.com conducts site visits at the 20 finalist locations for its second headquarters, or HQ2 project, little is known about most of those localities’ first-round bids, and almost nothing at all is known about six. Even though billions of dollars are at stake, few states and cities have fully disclosed their bids. Even those that have partially disclosed have not revealed the details of their tax-break offers and their costs to taxpayers.
Reporters' Tip: Amazon & Retail Job Churn
In response to many inquiries we have received since releasing our study, Will Amazon Fool Us Twice?, about aggressive subsidy-gathering behavior by the online retail giant (and to mark Amazon's made-up "Prime Day"), Good Jobs First issued a WARN Act tip for reporters on how to add additional context to Amazon.com's claim of "creating" 100,000 jobs.
Georgia Whiffs, Bernalillo County Homers on Tax-Break Disclosures!
As states and localities finally start to disclose how much revenue they lose to corporate welfare (thanks to GASB Statement 77*), we continue to see laggards and leaders.
Today we spotlight Georgia (which has failed to comply, claiming taxpayer confidentiality for numbers that have long been public) and Bernalillo
GASB 77 Data: Starting to Make Headlines -- Or Not
As we approach the first tsunami of GASB Statement 77 Tax Abatement Disclosure* data, Good Jobs First is already seeing some big differences in data quality from various states. Of special interest is Statement 77's requirement that governments report the tax revenue they lose passively, as the result of
Investigating Those 238 Bids for Amazon's HQ2
There's a terrific new resource to facilitate investigative journalism and citizen activism on those 238 Amazon HQ2 project bids!
We encourage everyone interested to visit and utilize MuckRock's website: https://www.muckrock.com/project/america-bids-on-amazon-175/
That page includes a list of more than 100 Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIAs) MuckRock has filed with local