The State of Working Pennsylvania 2004 - The Keystone Research ...
The State of Working Pennsylvania 2004 - The Keystone Research ...
The State of Working Pennsylvania 2004 - The Keystone Research ...
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<strong>The</strong> <strong>State</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Working</strong> <strong>Pennsylvania</strong> <strong>2004</strong> 6<br />
standards <strong>of</strong> their respective industries. <strong>The</strong> state should also limit total<br />
assistance per job and strengthen provisions that require companies to pay<br />
back money when they fail to deliver on job and wage promises.<br />
• Direct economic stimulus, other state and local economic development<br />
subsidies, and tax breaks to older, higher-unemployment communities.<br />
For example, the General Assembly intended tax increment financing<br />
(TIF) districts to attract new businesses into blighted urban areas by<br />
giving generous tax breaks. Too <strong>of</strong>ten TIFs are now misused to promote<br />
development in upscale outlying areas, on farmland, even on trout streams.<br />
TIFs should be restricted to redeveloping, reusing, or revitalizing previously<br />
developed industrial or commercial property. Similarly, business subsidies<br />
and capital budget outlays should strengthen incentives for “infill” projects in<br />
abandoned industrial space and shopping centers.<br />
• Increase state investment in the formation <strong>of</strong> multi-employer industry partnerships that<br />
bring together employers, unions, local governments, and community organizations,<br />
usually within a local area, to solve important problems facing employers and workers<br />
within an industry. 8 Multi-employer partnerships can address common skill, marketing,<br />
and employee benefit needs. Partnerships can also promote learning about job<br />
retention, organizational practices, and innovation in ways that benefit every member in<br />
circumstances where individual employers may lack the economic incentive or knowledge<br />
to acquire such information on their own.<br />
Just two <strong>of</strong> the many such partnerships already operating in <strong>Pennsylvania</strong> are:<br />
• the Southwestern <strong>Pennsylvania</strong> Partnership on Aging (SWPPA) which<br />
promotes high-quality care and better jobs in long-term care;<br />
• the Building Trades Apprenticeship Initiative in Reading which helps urban<br />
youth to obtain the academic and practical skill needed to enter building<br />
trades apprenticeship programs. 9<br />
• Enact personal exemptions that eliminate state and local income and wage taxes on the first<br />
part <strong>of</strong> income. Modifying the state constitution to permit personal exemptions was part <strong>of</strong><br />
a comprehensive state tax reform package put forward by a “PA21” business-labor tax project<br />
in a report released in April. 10 With no change in total tax revenue, personal exemptions<br />
combined with a higher flat income tax rate would make it possible to reduce the taxes paid<br />
by <strong>Pennsylvania</strong>’s low- and middle-income households. Such a shift would also increase<br />
federal income tax deductions claimed by higher-income taxpayers who itemize federal<br />
deductions. Both shifting the tax burden away from low- and middle-income taxpayers and<br />
increasing federal income tax deductions claimed by <strong>Pennsylvania</strong>ns would stimulate the<br />
<strong>Pennsylvania</strong> economy.<br />
Implementing these policy proposals would help wipe away the effects <strong>of</strong> the recession on<br />
<strong>Pennsylvania</strong>’s working people. Over the longer term they would improve economic opportunity,<br />
help more families become self-sufficient, boost <strong>Pennsylvania</strong>’s economy, and strengthen<br />
<strong>Pennsylvania</strong>’s cities and other older communities.