- Jobs program lost its way – and tax money, By Todd Wallack, March 14, 2010, Boston Globe: “The blue sign on the building says Nortel Networks, but it might as well be ‘Your tax dollars at work.’ In exchange for more than $2 million in state and local tax breaks, the Canadian telecommunications equipment maker promised a decade ago to expand its campus in Billerica, keeping 2,200 existing jobs and adding as many as 800 more. But instead of adding jobs, the struggling company has steadily slashed its operations for years. Today, it has 145 employees. It also still has those tax breaks, set to continue through 2014. And Nortel, amazingly, is by no means an isolated case. Over the past 16 years, Massachusetts has given away hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax breaks for more than 1,300 development projects under its Economic Development Incentive Program, which aims to encourage companies to invest here and create jobs. Often the incentives work and new jobs result. But far too often taxpayers have not come close to getting their money’s worth, a Globe review has found…”
- Rich towns get ‘distressed’ status, By Todd Wallack, March 15, 2010, Boston Globe: “Hingham boasts million-dollar estates along its scenic shoreline, stately antique houses on Main Street, and boutique shops around the town square. The median household income is nearly $113,000 a year, well above the state and national average, while unemployment is well below the statewide rate. Yet Massachusetts has long classified Hingham as ‘economically distressed.’ The South Shore town is on the state’s list of economic target areas, allowing several companies, including a six-screen movie theater and a clothing store, to qualify for special tax breaks in exchange for a promise to open there. And Hingham is not the only unlikely-seeming hard luck case. Over the last 16 years, the state has designated ‘economic target areas’ in 209 of the state’s 351 cities and towns, making companies eligible for tax breaks if they expand there. Among them are such other comfortable suburbs as Hopkinton, Bedford, Lexington, and Westwood. Though lawmakers originally created the Economic Development Incentive Program in 1993 to nudge businesses to invest in decaying cities and other areas scarred by poverty and unemployment, such as Fall River and Lawrence, the state has, over time, expanded the program to include almost any municipality that applies…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty