PHOTO BY ALAN DIAZ / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Florida Gov. Rick Scott received negative press in the last few days for his job creation record. The Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald  published a three-part series called “Jobs in Florida: The Rick Scott Record,” in which the newspapers document that only a small fraction of positions that subsidy recipients promised to create have actually materialized, and a significant portion of the deals have collapsed entirely. Accompanying the series is an interactive database showing the performance of 340 subsidy deals.

The series shows that the state pledged $266 million in public money for 45,258 jobs, often subsidizing low-wage industries like call centers and retail (Wal-Mart and its Sam’s Club unit are among the recipients). Ninety-six percent of those jobs have yet to materialize, with 46 deals creating none.

The state’s broader job picture has also been discouraging. The series points out that between January 2011 and November 2013 Florida lost 49,163 jobs at companies bigger than 100 employees, a fact never mentioned by the Scott administration.

We applaud the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald reporters for their impressive work (See our previous blog on similar investigations in North Carolina and Washington, DC).

This entry was posted on December 10, 2013 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Florida, Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.