Would billionaires spend millions to influence your vote if it had no value

By Sharon Ward, Third and States

Three national organizations offered a scathing criticism of policies endorsed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, in a conference call with reporters last week. Their findings strike a stake in the heart of ALEC claims that its view of the world — lower taxes, fewer workplace protections, and diminished public investments — is good for the public.

Pennsylvania state lawmakers who look to ALEC for guidance on economic policy should stand up and take notice.

Iowa Policy Project research director Peter Fisher discussed a recent report he co-authored with researchers from Good Jobs First, concluding that the tax, budget, and economic prescriptions put forth by ALEC simply don’t work.

Selling Snake Oil to the States took a look at ALEC’s annual Rich States, Poor States report, which ranks states based on their “economic outlooks” as defined by ALEC. The factors should come as no surprise: states with low taxes and right-to-work laws rank high by ALEC; those with progressive taxes, corporate income taxes, and worker protections rank far behind.

Fisher compared the ALEC rankings with actual state performance on real economic indicators over a four-year period. Do ALEC’s policy prescriptions improve state economies? The answer is no.

Between 2007 and 2011, researchers found no relationship between a high ALEC ranking and employment. They did find a correlation on personal incomes and poverty rates among states ranked high by ALEC, but it was a negative one — the better a state fared on the ALEC scale, the worse it did in real life. As Fisher said during the conference call:

It should be hardly surprising that policies to keep wages low have the effect of lowering the state’s income. … The ALEC policy prescriptions for states will not lead to growth and prosperity but to further inequality and lower incomes.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities examined sweeping tax and budget policies that ALEC is currently lobbying for in the states. The policies largely encompass deep tax cuts for wealthy individuals, investors, and corporations that will leave middle- and lower-income families paying more.

Both reports note that the ALEC agenda promotes low wage growth for families, fewer workplace protections, and strategies to starve public investments in education, health care, and other priorities — all of which reputable economists agree are critical to job creation and economic growth.

It is an article of faith among Pennsylvania lawmakers that ALEC policies are good for the economy. These reports provide clear and convincing evidence to the contrary: the arguments that the ALEC agenda are good for real people are nothing but snake oil. The policies are good for the businesses that pour millions into ALEC to promote this agenda.

Governor Tom Corbett has hidden large expensive new tax cuts to profitable corporations in his budget proposal released this month. This and other ALEC agenda items won’t create jobs, but they will lead to greater inequality, slower income growth, and continued starvation of our public schools, transit systems, and other priorities.
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By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State

In the 1890s, scientist George Stratton reported that, after four days of wearing a lens that inverted his vision, his brain reprocessed what he saw and flipped everything back up the right way.

John Micek’s Friday article brought this experiment to mind. Micek quotes Pennsylvania House Speaker Sam Smith summing up the accomplishments of the House of Representatives in the 2011-12 legislative session: “We … focused on the economy and private-sector job creation.” Majority Leader Mike Turzai echoed Smith saying: “We kept our commitments on fiscal responsibility and private-sector job-creation.”

Let’s take a look at some actual job numbers.

Between January 2011 (the start of the current legislative session) and September 2012 (the latest data available), the number of private-sector jobs in Pennsylvania grew by 87,000, an increase of 1.8%. In this period, Pennsylvania ranked 31st out of the 50 states for private job growth by percentage. National private-sector job growth equaled 3%.

If you look at the last 12 months, from September 2011 to September 2012, Pennsylvania’s private-sector job ranking falls to 35th, with the state’s private-sector job growth equal to about half the national rate.

Now, compare that to job growth between January 2010 and January 2011, when the commonwealth ranked 12th among the 50 states with job growth of 1.8% (compared to the national rate of 1.3%).

As our summer policy brief explained, part of what is dragging down private job growth in Pennsylvania are deep cuts to education and other services that led to the layoff of 20,000 teachers and thousands of other public-sector workers in 2011. As a result, private-sector job growth also is not keeping pace with more than three out of every five states.

I’d hate to see the numbers if the Legislature hadn’t kept its commitments on private-sector job growth.

By Mark Price, Third and State

On Monday night, the Lower Allen Township commissioners in Cumberland County considered a proposal from Ahold USA, the corporate parent of Giant Food Stores, for a $400,000 property tax abatement on a meat repackaging plant on which the company has already broken ground. (Ahold USA is itself the subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Ahold.)

The company has neglected a basic principle of the economic development game through which companies extract subsidies and tax breaks from states and localities where they were going to build anyway: until you have the subsidy in hand, don’t give away that it will not impact your location decision.

But since the company made this error, the title of this blog post, taken from the Austin Powers movie Goldmember, should suffice for the township’s answer. (It is pure coincidence that Goldmember, a Dutchman pictured to the right, has a gold G on his velvet sweatsuit.)

Here are two stories on this issue.

• Roger Quigley, Patriot-News — Lower Allen Township commissioners delay decision on tax-relief request

• Jim T. Ryan, Central Penn Business Journal — Lower Allen delays LERTA decision for Giant/Ahold facility

The Lower Allen commissioners should continue to say no to Ahold’s request because it is a simple giveaway that diverts needed tax revenue from the township. It would be that much costlier if the West Shore School District (which has absorbed $2.2 million in state budget cuts since 2010-11) and Cumberland County (where property taxes for most homeowners and businesses may rise by 22% next year) follow suit.

The repackaging plant will consolidate meat cutting operations for Ahold USA’s stores in the mid-Atlantic region. Customers will no longer get their meat freshly cut in the store, instead, the meat cutting and packaging function is being moved to a central location with easy access to the interstate. Some meat cutters will lose their jobs in the process, while others might be offered jobs at the new facility, at a lower wage.

For its $400,000, Lower Allen Township is being promised between 450 and 800 jobs; there is no word on how many jobs will be lost at Giant Food Stores in the region or at the company’s Maryland division.

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By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State

Governor Tom Corbett’s administration has a new summary of Pennsylvania’s recent job performance. Today’s news that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is as high as the national unemployment rate underscores, however, that the state’s recent jobs record is not  good. Let’s take a closer look.

PA vs. U.S.: The Corbett jobs summary notes that Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is below the national rate — and it was when the summary was first released. This was not a new trend: the Pennsylvania rate was a point or a point-and-a-half below the national rate for most of the four years before Governor Corbett took office. A year ago, the gap between the Pennsylvania and U.S. unemployment rate was still statistically significant. (See Table A.) But the gap between the two rates — the “Pennsylvania advantage” — has been shrinking steadily since 2010 until the Pennsylvania rate finally climbed to the U.S. level in August 2012, both equaling 8.1%.

Private-sector Job Growth: While the administration touts private-sector job growth in 2011, the numbers reflect a national trend, rather than a unique Pennsylvania story.

The U.S. economy has had 30 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. In fact, Pennsylvania’s rank for the percent growth in private-sector job growth has fallen from 8th in 2010 to 36th in the 12 months ending in July 2012. One of the reasons that Pennsylvania’s private-sector job-growth ranking is down is the deeper cuts in public employment in Pennsylvania compared to other states. Deep cuts to Pennsylvania public schools and colleges led to a loss of 14,000 education jobs alone in 2011.

These layoffs impact the classroom and Main Street too. Unemployed teachers, like unemployed factory workers, don’t have money to spend, which affects the broader economy.

Manufacturing Job Growth: Manufacturing jobs growth improved in 2011, but again reflects national trends. In fact, Pennsylvania’s manufacturing job growth since early 2010 is slightly below half the national increase. (See The State of Working Pennsylvania 2012.)

New Hires in Marcellus Shale: Not this one again. The administration is touting natural gas industry growth by citing the number of new hires. As we’ve explained repeatedly, new hires are not new jobs (most new hires replace people who quit or are fired). In fact, the number of new hires is basically a meaningless number. Statewide there were 580,400 new hires during the 2nd quarter in Pennsylvania, while total non-farm employment rose between the 1st and 2nd quarter by less than 300 jobs. In other words, the only reason to cite new hires is to make the job gain seem substantially larger than it really is.

The gas industry has led to some job growth in Pennsylvania, just not on the scale claimed by the industry. Between the 4th quarter of 2008 and the 4th quarter of 2011, employment in the core Marcellus Shale industries grew by 18,000. That gain was largely wiped out by the loss of 14,000 education jobs in just one year. Even using the most generous estimates, employment in the Marcellus Shale in direct and ancillary industries in the 4th quarter of 2011 (as published by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and industry) was 238,400 – about 4.2% of total state employment.

Here’s the unsolicited advice: Twenty months into Governor Corbett’s first term, there is still time for the Governor to pursue policies that will improve Pennsylvania’s job performance. There are multiple options that have strong bipartisan and business support. For example, investing in transportation infrastructure as recommended by the Governor’s own transportation commission.

In manufacturing and workforce development, the administration is also saying some of the right things. But talk is cheap: we need actual investment in skills and innovation if our job performance is going to improve relative to other states and the nation.

By Stephen Herzenberg, Third and State

After former President Bill Clinton claimed the “jobs score” was better in Democratic presidential administrations than in Republican ones, Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa and I did some research to see how presidential administrations scored on manufacturing job creation since Harry Truman. Our findings are published on AlterNet this morning.

We thought it was important to do this analysis because manufacturing jobs are typically family-supporting jobs — in other words, good jobs. Manufacturing also plays a critical role in the growth of overall living standards, a point on which there is bipartisan consensus.

What’s the punchline? Democratic administrations (seven since 1948) on average add around a million manufacturing jobs every four years. Republican administrations (nine since 1948) lose about a million manufacturing jobs every four years.

We think these findings will be especially salient in battleground states such as Pennsylvania where voters in manufacturing-intensive regions make up a large share of swing voters.

For more, read our full piece on AlterNet.

By Mark Price, Third and State

Labor Day 2012 is behind us, but the challenges confronting the middle class are not.

As we do each year around this time, the Keystone Research Center has released the State of Working Pennsylvania. My co-author, a.k.a El Jefe, had a Labor Day op-ed in the Harrisburg Patriot-News where he laid out the theme of this year’s report — namely, that the middle class in Pennsylvania and the U.S. cannot afford another lost decade.

The next three figures lay out the major elements of this year’s State of Working Pennsylvania: employment growth over the last decade has been weak (Figure 1.10); as a result, incomes over the last decade declined (Figure 1.11); and in the first year of the recovery and of the new decade, income inequality resumed its growth as the top 1% increased their share of all income (Figure 5.1). 

With job growth weak and many policymakers advocating that we lay off more teachers and continue to put off needed investments in infrastructure, we are very concerned that working and middle-class families may end the next decade with less income from work than they started with in 2010.

By Mark Price, Third and State

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate shot up three-tenths of a point in July to 7.9%. Just two months before in May, the rate was 7.4%. Total nonfarm jobs in the state were down 3,100 in July.

That’s not all. There was a big revision downward with the state’s nonfarm payroll count for June: it was originally reported as 5,729,700, but was revised down by 17,400. To put it in some perspective: Pennsylvania reported a June jobs gain in its report last month of 14,600 jobs. After the latest revisions, Pennsylvania actually lost 2,800 jobs in June.

Industry-wise, the July report is a mixed bag. Mining; trade, transportation & utilities; information; professional & business services; and other services saw gains. Constructions; manufacturing; financial activities; education & health services; leisure & hospitality; and government saw losses.

Overall, July was not a good month for the labor market in Pennsylvania, with employment falling in both the household (-10,000) and establishment (-3,100) surveys, and, of course, with the unemployment rate rising to just shy of 8% and shamefully close to the national unemployment rate of 8.3%.

I say shamefully because Pennsylvania weathered this recession better than most states and early in the recovery posted strong job gains. The Pennsylvania advantage coming out of the recession is being slowly whittled away by the persistent loss of public-sector jobs, mostly in local school districts, that has followed deep cuts in state funding.

I wouldn’t panic over these numbers; there is no reason to believe the Pennsylvania or national economy are headed into a recession. Growth just remains disappointingly weak and will likely remain so through the end of the year.

By Chris Lilienthal, Third and State

Despite ending the 2011-12 fiscal year with a $649 million fund balance, Pennsylvania fails to make the investments essential to building a strong economy or to reverse a recent trend where job growth in the commonwealth has lagged behind other states.

So concludes the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center analysis of the enacted 2012-13 state budget, which was released Friday.

In the final budget, the General Assembly restores some of the cuts proposed by Governor Tom Corbett, while leaving intact a 10% cut to human services and deep cuts to public schools and higher education made in 2011. The budget continues to shift costs to local governments and taxpayers, while adding new tax breaks for businesses.

The spending plan, at $27.656 billion, is $517 million more than the Governor’s February proposal but remains below budgeted 2008-09 levels, despite four years of recession-driven increases in demand for services. The largest cut in this budget comes from the elimination of the General Assistance Program, which provides a temporary monthly benefit to 68,887 Pennsylvanians who are sick, disabled or escaping an abuser. It ends next month

Cuts to education enacted last year, meanwhile, have diminished the quality of instruction in our poorest school districts and resulted in the loss of 14,000 jobs in 2011.

The budget squeezes money out of human services, education and General Assistance at the same time it expands and creates new tax credits and continues the ongoing phase-out of the capital stock and franchise tax. This is part of a decade-long pattern that will see the commonwealth spending $2.4 billion on corporate tax breaks in the new budget. That amount has tripled over the last 10 years and does not count the hundreds of millions of dollars lost annually to corporate tax loopholes. Most of these tax breaks primarily benefit the largest corporations and come with no commitment to create jobs.

As the economy continues to recover, Pennsylvania will need to make public investments to build a strong economy and make Pennsylvania a place where families will want to live. This budget takes a small step in that direction, but falls well short of where we need to be.

Check out the center’s budget analysis for more.

By Mark Price, Third and State

Photo by Davidd

Happy Sunny Friday, people! Now for the not so good news. The job numbers for Pennsylvania came out Thursday, and the overall picture was somewhat disappointing. The unemployment rate edged down slightly to 7.4% and nonfarm payrolls declined by 600 jobs. Focusing on the jobs data, the biggest loser in April was construction, which shed an eye-popping 5,400 jobs. That is a big swing at a time of year when construction projects should be ramping up. Odds are that loss is driven by sampling error rather than real trends in construction activity. Another troubling stat was the loss of 1,700 jobs in the public sector.

Because monthly data are somewhat erratic, you shouldn’t make too much out of any one-month change in employment overall or within a sector. Looking at nonfarm payrolls since October, the jobs picture is somewhat brighter with Pennsylvania adding, on average, 3,900 jobs a month. So Pennsylvania’s labor market, like the national labor market, is continuing to recover.

Now for the bad news: if you were hoping the Pennsylvania economy would finally return to full employment by 2015 (remember, the recession started in December 2007), nonfarm payrolls need to grow by about 10,000 jobs a month. So by that metric, we are a long way from fully recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

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By Mark Price, Third and State

On Tuesday Marty Moss-Coane, the host of WHYY’s Radio Times, moderated a question-and-answer session with Governor Tom Corbett at an event sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. The Governor ran wild with analogies.

• Bob Fernandez, The Philadelphia Inquirer — With protesters nearby, Corbett sticks to message for Phila. Chamber:

Corbett repeated a folksy analogy to the business suit-and-tie audience, saying that state revenue amounted to an eight-inch pizza pie before the 2008 financial crisis. Now, he said, it’s a six-inch pie “but with the same mouths to feed.”

• Chris Brennan, Philadelphia Daily News — Corbett: Open to spending more, but not protesters:

Moss-Coane noted near the end of the hour-long conversation that Corbett could hear demonstrators beating drums and chanting slogans outside. What would he say to them, she asked.

“I understand that you’re upset because we’ve had to put the state on a diet, for want of a better description,” Corbett said. “I haven’t met anybody who likes to go on diets. It is not easy. It is not what we want to do.”

Of course, if you really wanted to grow the pie, you could start by closing corporate tax loopholes and not creating new ones.

While the Corbett diet is high in corporate tax breaks, it is low in investments in human capital. Take, for example, the Harrisburg School District, which thanks in part to state budget cuts is considering eliminating kindergarten.

• Eric Veronikis, The Patriot-News — Budget deficit could cost Harrisburg School District its kindergarten program:

Duane O’Neal-Sloane longingly watches his older siblings pack their school lunches, wishing he was doing the same and heading off to school each morning.

After perfectly reciting his ABCs, O’Neal-Sloane said next year he even will be able to write, take gym class and eat in the lunch room at Camp Curtin School.

But with the Harrisburg School District facing a $15.8 million budget deficit next year, Duane’s hopes of attending kindergarten at Camp Curtin next fall could be dashed.

To help close next year’s budget gap, school officials are looking to cut Harrisburg’s kindergarten program and other programs the district is not lawfully required to provide…

Harrisburg isn’t the only Pennsylvania school district looking to drop kindergarten due to looming deficits, said Wythe Keever, spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which represents teacher unions across much of the state.

York City School District and the Woodland Hills School District in Allegheny County are at least two others considering the same thing, Keever said.