Good Jobs First: “In the past year, four the biggest tech giants, Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, spent an estimated $360 billion on capital expenditures, mostly building data centers across the U.S.; even more investment is projected in the next several years. Most of that will be spent on purchasing building materials and specialized equipment, such as chips, cables, and industrial-sized generators. In at least 36 states, those purchases are exempt from sales and use taxes under incentive laws specifically crafted for the industry. This makes the data centers one of the most subsidized industries in the country. And yet, despite these subsidies costing states billions of dollars in lost revenue annually, the lack of transparency into what companies are getting what and where, and what communities are getting in return, is shocking. A few states have computed their returns on taxpayer investments: they have determined that they lose between 52 and 70 cents for every dollar they spend on data center sales tax exemptions. Given drastic federal austerity that will significantly harm state and local budgets, states need to seriously consider ending or reducing such tax breaks (since states legally enable and regulate them)…”

• Press Release Full Report (PDF)