Key Reforms: Preventing Job Piracy

State and Local Anti-Poaching Agreements

Although the use of subsidies to lure existing business facilities from one jursidiction to another is widely criticized, state and local officials have done little to stop the practice. In a handful of  places, however, governments have entered into formal or informal agreements to stop trying to "steal" one another's companies. For an overview of such agreements, see the September 2006

backgrounder

written by Wendy Patton of

Policy Matters Ohio

.

Federal Anti-Piracy Provisions

Prohibitions against piracy have also been written into various subsidy programs authorized at the federal level, including Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities and Urban Development Action Grants.

Good Jobs First conducted a survey of these provisions and summarized the findings in a

memo

; we found at least eight federal subsidy programs that have had anti-piracy rules.