Two More Corporate Welfare Recipients in NC Fail to Create Promised Jobs | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the John Locke Foundation. The author of this post is Brian Balfour.

    On the heels of my colleague Jon Sanders highlighting that the cost to North Carolina taxpayers for each promised job from government handouts to corporations comes to $586,000 each, the N&O reports that two previous corporate welfare deals are being canceled because the promised jobs never materialized.

    "Prescient, a construction technology company based in North Carolina, has canceled an incentive agreement with the state that could have brought the startup up to $2 million if it hired more than 200 workers in Alamance County. However, the company has struggled to find enough workers for its manufacturing facility in Mebane. ...

    In addition to Prescient's incentive cancellation, the state also voided an agreement with the financial firm Arch Capital, which had planned to add more than 300 jobs at the Dillon tower in downtown Raleigh. Arch had notified the state in a letter that it would not be able to meet its hiring and investment goals."

    This shouldn't come as a surprise. Previous research has shown that about 37% of such incentivized projects fail to create a single job, while just over half the promised jobs ever materialized.

    Of course, Gov. Cooper's office no doubt breathlessly issued press releases at the time the taxpayer handouts were agreed to, so he could take credit for "creating jobs." We can equally be certain that Cooper's office will remain silent now that the deals have been canceled.