Tag: DEDO

Jobs in Delaware

The NJ on Sunday begins a series looking at the state of jobs in Delaware, pointing out what we already know — that very low wage jobs are increasing, jobs in the middle are disappearing (or taking much less money) and there is employment in the upper end if you have the right education and skill set. And while the Governor and Alan Levin have been working at “economic development”, there’s been little increase in the kinds of jobs that are most needed here immediately. It is difficult to say that the Governor and his DEDO Director haven’t been working hard at this — I think they have. But most of what passes for economic development since the Great Recession pretty much everywhere is a numbers game — figuring out how to boost the number of jobs in your state without paying much attention to either the quality of those jobs or the ROI any taxpayer subsidy might provide for Delaware taxpayers. Governments are chasing the same limited pool of jobs and working at a classic race to the bottom strategy to get them. Almost all of them are providing taxpayer subsidies to get those jobs in their states, and clawback provisions in case the employer doesn’t fulfill promises are still too rare.

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