How Not to Grow Jobs

A new report by the Good Jobs First foundation determined that tax incentives to create more high-tech jobs in Pennsylvania failed miserably. Between 1990 and 2006 only 43 new employers came to state, when the state had a net loss of 2,850 jobs for the same period.

According to Carnegie Mellon University economist Robert Strauss, the incentives don’t work because state and local tax incentives often reward companies for what they would have done anyway. Strauss added that large, profitable corporations push for these incentives because they “just want their tax bills to be reduced.”

Maybe President Obama should take a look at the research since he’s such a supporter of this type of “failed” incentive.