The Pew Charitable Trusts - State and Consumer Initiatives about

How Many Jobs Did Your State Create?

Oil-rich North Dakota boasted the largest over-the-year percentage increase in employment, and Texas created the most jobs over the past year.

How Did States Create Jobs?

States this year awarded tax breaks to businesses, touted worker-training programs and even poached jobs from each other to boost their economies and create work for the nearly 12 million Americans still unemployed.

States Use Connections to Boost China Exports

As President Obama prepares for his visit with the new Chinese President Xi in California this weekend, some states have already cultivated business ties to China and Xi.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Evaluate State Job Incentives

Are Georgians getting a good return on the millions of state tax dollars spent each year on economic development incentives? Opinions on that question are plentiful, but missing from the debate is the evidence needed to determine the answer. That’s

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Incentives for Companies in Georgia Sometimes Don’t Deliver Promised Jobs

Hungry for jobs, Georgia has spent hundreds of millions of public dollars in the last decade on grants to recruit and retain businesses.

Jackson Free Press: Lawmakers Must Decide on Raft of Tax-cut Bills

How much is too much? When it comes to tax cuts, that's the question that lawmakers and Gov. Phil Bryant must decide in coming weeks.

Which States Tax Your Travel the Most?

Your vacation dollar won’t go as far in some destinations because of state and local travel taxes.

Economic Development Agencies Face New Scrutiny

When Wisconsin partially privatized its Department of Commerce last year, the hope was to create a less bureaucratic job creation organization. Since then, though, the new entity has faced a series of setbacks.

State Tax Incentives for Economic Development

This collection of research highlights steps that states can take to create fiscally sound state tax incentives and to determine whether existing incentives are generating solid economic returns.

Avoiding Blank Checks

Two up-front steps can help states create fiscally sound tax incentives. When policy makers omit these steps, they leave their states vulnerable to unexpected budget challenges.

Texas Cancer Agency Fights Controversy

The state’s $3 billion effort to attack cancer is under fire for the way some awards have been made.

Oklahoma Among States Limiting Property Taxes

Lowering property taxes is always popular, and results from the November 6 elections show this year was no exemption

Voters Approve More State Debt

Voters in New Jersey and Alabama heed their governors’ call and approve bond issues as a way to boost their states’ economies.

Bond Measures Put Some Governors’ Clout on Line

Some governors are urging voters to approve bond issues as way to boost their states’ economies.

Redevelopment in California: The Program That Disappeared

One of the oldest urban redevelopment programs in the country went out of existence this year. Cities in California have yet to recover from the blow.

Art for the Economy’s Sake

After years of budget cuts, state funding for the arts is making a comeback.

Rhode Island Faces an Investment Gone Awry

After an investment many questioned from the beginning, Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios bankruptcy has left Rhode Island with a significant debt to pay, and facing questions over the future of economic development efforts.

Illinois Gov. Quinn Unveils $1.6 Billion in Transit Projects

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn set in motion more than $1.6 billion in new transportation projects, which he says will create 20,000 jobs and relieve both vehicle and rail traffic congestion across his state.

Competing Globally: Governors Give, Get Ideas

Politicians in hyper-partisan Washington may shun any proposal from across the aisle, but some governors aren’t shy about stealing a neighboring state’s idea and giving credit, regardless of their counterpart’s political party.

Interactive: Job Gains and Losses 2007-2012

While most states posted modest gains, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and New Hampshire were among seven states that lost jobs.

Evidence Counts

A report by the Pew Center on the States concludes that 13 states are leading the way in generating much-needed answers about tax incentives’ effectiveness. Twelve states have mixed results. Half the states have not taken the basic steps needed to know whether their incentives are effective. The study highlights a wealth of promising approaches states have taken to help lawmakers find those answers.

Tennessee Republicans See Threat in U.N. Plan

Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives say a 20-year-old United Nations program for sustainable development is “destructive and insidious.”

Will Nevada Diversify Its Boom-and-Bust Economy?

ECONOMY & BUSINESS BEAT: The state that leads the nation in unemployment and foreclosures is doing some soul-searching over how to control its volatile economic cycles.

'Enterprise Zones' Expand, Draw Scrutiny

ECONOMY & BUSINESS BEAT: For decades, states have singled out blighted areas within their borders and offered tax credits to businesses that invest in them. But critics say such "enterprise zones" have expanded too sharply, at too great a cost to taxpayers.

Sarah Emmans: States' Revenue Estimating

Sarah McLaughlin Emmans explains the process states use to forecast revenue, discusses the challenges that they continue to face, and outlines measures some states have used to improve accuracy.

In California, a State and Local War Over Revenue and Responsibilities

PART THREE OF THREE: At a desperate fiscal moment, California's state legislators and city officials are barely on speaking terms. Governor Jerry Brown lacks the power to bring the feuding factions into line.

South Carolina Dials Up Pressure Over Boeing Plant

TODAY'S TAKE: South Carolina officials are complaining about an effort by the National Labor Relations Board to derail a $1 billion Boeing plant in their state, saying the NLRB would be undermining free enterprise.

Study Finds Details Lacking in Economic Development Deals

TODAY'S TAKE: Governors are placing a premium on economic development, moving aggressively to lure more private-sector jobs to their states. The public, however, often is kept in the dark about the state tax breaks, grants and other incentives that are often at the center of such deals, according to a new study.

States to Try Outsourcing Economic Development

Which works best - a government-run business promotion agency or a private one? We're about to learn some lessons.

Oklahoma House Republicans Question Leader's Conservatism

TRANSITION WATCH: Kris Steele's focus on economic issues angers some right-leaning Oklahoma Republicans, Connecticut's new governor is likely to dictate the fate of tens of millions of state e-mails, and other news of the historic shift in power in the states.

Collateral Costs

Collateral Costs: Incarceration’s Effect on Economic Mobility was a collaborative effort between the Pew Charitable Trusts' Economic Mobility Project and its Public Safety Performance Project (PSPP). The 2010 report examined the impact of incarceration on the economic opportunity and mobility of former inmates and their families.

Work Shared, Jobs Spared

A program called work sharing is helping thousands of companies avoid layoffs by cutting workers' hours and making up some of the lost wages with state unemployment benefits. At no additional cost to states, work sharing helps businesses retain skilled employees, allows workers to stay on the job and keep their benefits and boosts the local economy. So far, only 17 states offer the job-saving program, but at least seven more states legislatures are considering bills to provide the widely praised unemployment insurance option. Congress may give states another reason to try the program -- federal incentive funds.

Study: Which States Lose Out to China?

TODAY'S TAKE: Since 2001, when China entered the World Trade Organization, at least 2.4 million American jobs have been lost as a result of increased U.S. trade with that country, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. The study finds that the states that have lost the most jobs to China - as a percentage of their overall employment - are New Hampshire, North Carolina, Massachusetts, California and Oregon.

Sales Tax Breaks Erode State Revenues

As shoppers in 15 states rush to buy tax-free clothing and school supplies this August, some lawmakers are experiencing buyer's remorse: Their "sales-tax holidays" are pinching revenues at a time when state coffers are hurting.

Weekly Wrap: Feds Release Long-Awaited Stimulus job guidelines

The Obama administration tells state officials to take "a simple headcount" of jobs saved or created by the stimulus program. Meanwhile, the demand for some special jobs is soaring. Officials also warn states not to shortchange education when balancing budgets.

Tracking the Recession: States Target Jobs

Though unemployment is rising in nearly every state, aggressive efforts to create jobs are paying off - modestly - in many states.

Tracking the Recession: USDA Hands Out Stimulus money for Flood projects

Eleven states receive funds that federal officials say will rebuild dams and strengthen rural economies.

Home Insulation Program Takes Heat

A little-known home insulation program for low-income families is getting a huge boost in funding under the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan, but critics doubt states will be able to hire and train workers fast enough to meet the deadlines.

States Team Up to Save in Tight Times

The recession is pushing the governors of Minnesota and Wisconsin to team up to deliver some basic state services and save taxpayers on both sides of their border $10 million to start. States have been squeezing out savings by working together or with local governments for years, but the recession could spur more efforts to cooperate.

States Cope With Rising Homelessness

As many as 3.4 million Americans are likely to experience homelessness this year - a 35 percent increase since the recession started in December 2007 - and a majority will be families with children. The economic stimulus package includes $1.5 billion to address the problem, but officials say it's not enough to cover the cost of housing for millions of families in crisis.

House Stimulus Plan Wins State Praise

State officials got their first look of the massive economic package worth $825 billion that Congress promises to deliver next month to President-elect Barack Obama, and many liked what they saw.

Massachusetts Leads in `New Economy'

Massachusetts once again leads all other states in moving its economy away from the old industrial "smokestack-chasing" model to one based on technology, creativity and innovation, a new report released Nov. 18 said.

States Craft Plans to Stimulate Economy

States aren't waiting for help from Washington, D.C., to boost their economies. More than half a dozen have passed or proposed their own economic stimulus packages designed to reinvigorate local businesses with new construction, loans to hometown banks and other job-creating activities.

States May Raze Court's Domain Ruling

A Supreme Court decision that broadened government power to seize property for economic development has galvanized state legislatures to rein in eminent domain authority. Governors and legislators from Texas to New Jersey have similar responses to last month's ruling: no thanks.

States Look Beyond Quotas to Promote Minority Firms

Laws that require state agencies to set aside a portion of their contracts for minority-owned businesses have been around since the 1960s. But racial preference programs have been dogged by the threat of legal challenges, so some states are getting creative and devising new approaches to expanding diversity in business ownership.

Despite Federal Chill, States Keen to Trade with Cuba

In Havana, Cuba, this week, state officials from Louisiana, Maine, Alabama are helping U.S. companies negotiate cash-only contracts for sales of agricultural and health-related goods under the narrow confines of U.S. restrictions. The state effort is in sharp contrast with the federal effort to isolate the communist island nation.

Democrats Say Kerry Would Bring Better Times for States

If John Kerry is elected president, Democrats foresee a new partnership between the federal government and states. The U.S. senator from Massachusetts accepted his party's presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, and he and his supporters said a Kerry White House would pursue new strategies to create jobs, lessen health care costs and boost state economies.

States Have Role to Play in New Global Challenge

From editorial boards to Capitol Hill to living rooms across the United States, much has been made of the outsourcing of American jobs overseas. Outsourcing is not, however, the cause, but rather a symptom of a larger and more critical issue the U.S. may be losing its competitive edge and its leadership is once again being challenged in the increasingly global marketplace.

Hispanic-State Legislators to Convene in D.C.

Approximately 60 of the countrys 300 Hispanic state legislators will meet in Washington, D.C. this weekend to discuss education, health care, housing and economic development with members of Congress and business and academic communities.

Utah Leverages Olympics Hosting

Given the intense security concerns and emotionally charged atmosphere surrounding the 2002 Winter Olympics, its not hard to imagine Utah state officials breathing a collective sigh of relief at the conclusion of the Salt Lake City games back in February. But their job didnt end with the lowering of the Olympic flag