Power bills are sky-high, and data centers are to blame, right? Well, yes, but there's something else, upstream of the AI boom: a utility sector beholden to financial interests, resulting in massive corporate profits. I looked into this dynamic for @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2026...

@markgmaurer.bsky.social on how FASB accounting rules lump together data center build outs with more rapidly depreciating chips, making the disclosures difficult to understand. www.wsj.com/articles/ai-...

"According to research by Good Jobs First, data center tax abatement cost Texas more than $1 billion in 2025...In 2024, Virginia tax exemptions also cost the state $1 billion. At least 10 states lose tax revenue in excess of $100 million per year to data centers..." www.governing.com/map-of-the-d...

The Trump administration is adopting policies that will expose workers to ever-more hazardous conditions. And as our new report cited here notes, enforcement of even existing policies drastically dropped in Trump's first nine months. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/o...

🚨Our new analysis reveals that enforcement levels for corporate crime have dropped in 2025🚨 We found drops in enforcement across- ↘️ Labour Market ↘️ Health and Safety ↘️ Fraud ↘️Consumer Protection ↘️ Environment ↘️ Financial Read more: goodjobsfirst.org/the-state-of...

The Trump administration is failing to protect workers. The Department of Labor isn't enforcing workers’ rights or fining companies for labor law violations — leaving workers to pay the price ⤵️

"Wage and hour penalties have decreased 94% during Trump’s second term; and workplace health and safety penalties have dropped 45%."

It matters to workers who is President: @goodjobsfirst.org reports that 2025 has witnessed a dramatic drop in federal enforcement of wage and workplace safety regulations. goodjobsfirst.org/worker-prote...

More evidence of the collapse of federal wage theft enforcement under Trump from @goodjobsfirst.org. See more details at goodjobsfirst.org/worker-prote...

NEW ANALYSIS: Federal regulatory agencies charged with enforcing wage and workplace safety conditions are taking drastically fewer actions against companies, and proposed rule changes by the administration will give workers even fewer protections. 🧵 goodjobsfirst.org/worker-prote...

🚨 Our latest report with @goodjobsfirst.org reveals that chemical pollution in the UK has reached crisis levels. The UK must prioritise urgent action to align regulation, increase transparency, and begin transitioning to a PFAS-free circular economy. Report here ➡️ goodjobsfirst.org/silent-conta...

1/4 🧵 This report from @goodjobsfirst.org should be a wake-up call for Louisiana. States are handing out massive subsidies to data centers — but almost none are tracking the costs or the outcomes. 📄 Cloudy Data, Costly Deals: goodjobsfirst.org/wp-content/u...

NEW ANALYSIS: Tax abatements for developers are costing St. Louis public schools *tens of millions* of dollars every year! Black, Brown, and working class families are getting hit the hardest 😡

The solution? Protect our schools from tax abatements, give our families a say-so in the decisions that affect our lives, and STOP all subsidies to data centers. 🔗 Read the full report from @goodjobsfirst.org at GoodJobsFirst.org #MOworkers

“When federal contractors get state and local tax breaks, we consider that to be double-dipping,” Greg LeRoy told the Investigative Post. “Why should state and local taxpayers make their profit margins bigger?” www.investigativepost.org/2025/12/11/a...

#Instacart users may be paying wildly different prices—on the same groceries—according to a new study. Here's what to know if you use the online grocery delivery and pickup service. My latest for @fastcompany.com www.fastcompany.com/91458229/wan...

One company promised 400 high-paying jobs; it delivered 26 jobs that paid an average annual wage of $38,000. It got the taxpayer subsidy anyway. #DataCenters www.techpolicy.press/michigan-off...

One company promised 400 high-paying jobs; it delivered 26 jobs that paid an average annual wage of $38,000. It got the taxpayer subsidy anyway. www.techpolicy.press/michigan-off...

Just released! @goodjobsfirst.org report on revenue lost to tax breaks in the STL area. Updated with 2024 data. #ACFR2024 “We say: shield school taxes from abatements, give districts a say on TIFs, and curb data-center subsidies.” #EndSubsidySecrecy #WhatOurStudentsLose #IncentiveReform

NEW ANALYSIS: St. Louis-area tax abatements, especially TIF, have cost public schools $380M in 8 yrs. Losses have grown significantly. In FY 24, it hit $70M. We say: shield school taxes from abatements, give districts a say on TIFs, and curb data-center subsidies. goodjobsfirst.org/increasing-s...

Meet our longtime researcher Kasia Tarczynska, whose passion for fair, community-led economic development drives her work. From rural Poland to Chicago to D.C., she’s spent years exposing how corporate subsidies drain money from schools and communities. goodjobsfirst.org/5-questions-...

We too often look at prices when talking about affordability & not enough at wages. As Harold Meyerson explains, had the bottom 90% earned the same share of national income they did in 1975, by 2023 they would have made an additional $79 trillion! prospect.org/2025/12/03/7...

12. The reality can be seen in the data: In Berkeley County, WV, the schools spent $1.3 million with Amazon — and only $142 went to in-state sellers. The vast majority of the district’s spending went to Amazon itself or to overseas vendors.

4. Amazon’s pricing algorithms continuously adjust what governments pay. The result is wild swings: one city bought a 12-pack of Sharpie markers for $8.99. A nearby school district paid $28.63 for the same pack that same day. Our data contain thousands of these examples.

1. Amazon has become a major force in how cities, counties & schools buy basic supplies. Our new report finds Amazon is using opaque pricing algorithms to drive up costs and eliminate transparency—while harming competition by pushing out better-performing independent suppliers.

“The fact that we are subsidizing (data centers) to the tune of billions of dollars to build something that they already need and they’re going to build anyway...that is an extremely wasteful use of taxpayer dollars,” GJF's Anthony Elmo told @notus.com www.notus.org/technology/d...

Our work on data centers in the @nytimes.com. The facilities are heavy water/energy users, and often the big companies behind them get huge taxpayer subsidies. In many states, transparency is so bad the public can't see just how much $ they're giving companies. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/u...

AI pricing is here, and you’re paying for it. Corporations are raking in record profits by using AI to set prices based on personal data — and loyal customers end up paying the most. “It is a well-oiled extraction machine.” From @ddayen.bsky.social: trib.al/PKHo6he

Good Jobs First Founder Greg LeRoy is stepping down as executive director. Help us find a great candidate to lead this incredible organization! Details on the job and how to apply: www.idealist.org/en/job/ad148...

NEW UPGRADES: Subsidy Tracker now features enhanced search options, including industry-level filters and multi-select government levels to search awards by state or local programs only. We also just added 6,884 new entries totaling at least $7.1B in subsidies. goodjobsfirst.org/new-search-f...

Records show that Raytheon was able to claim tax refunds for jobs it didn’t create and bypass public comment for new grants in North Carolina. inkstickmedia.com/special-trea...

I got hundreds of pages of records about a controversial deal to offer millions in state + local subsidies to Raytheon (Pratt & Whitney) for a new plant in Asheville, NC. The company produces the engine for the F-35, which Israel has used during the Gaza genocide inkstickmedia.com/special-trea...

🏠📄NEW: Our latest paper — "Capital Crunch" — is OUT NOW! The paper details the policy choices that created today’s financialized homebuilding industry, which bends to the will of Wall Street, restricting single-family home supply and raising prices. 👇

How's your state doing when it comes to disclosing how much money residents are giving to giant tech companies to build data centers? Odds are, you won't find out much. www.route-fifty.com/digital-gove...

"In Louisiana, tech giant Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, is building the largest data center complex in the world. Yet, the public has no insight into how much in sales tax breaks Meta is receiving." stateline.org/2025/11/12/m... #lalege #lagov @goodjobsfirst.org

“This is $1B less for food assistance, public health care, roads, schools-public services that everyday Virginians rely on,” GJF's Kasia Tarczynska said. “Instead, these public dollars are benefiting some of the most profitable companies in the world.” www.rappnews.com/virginia-dat...

In Fulton #GApol, data centers don't even need tax breaks (though most get them). That's cos County Assessors only value them at 10-20% of what data center developers say they are worth. Correcting this raises $48M this year. Another ~$140M/yr as $10 Billion more come on line.

“The lack of transparency surrounding data center subsidy recipients specifically reveals they receive special treatment. While some states publicly report which companies receive tax-based subsidies, such as income or investment tax credits, they fail to do that for data center subsidies” GJF🧵 ⬇️

NEW: 36 states lavish tax breaks on data centers. But just 11 of those states reveal the names of the companies getting the tax breaks, fewer disclose the value of the tax breaks, and NO state provides both estimated and actual jobs created. 1- goodjobsfirst.org/cloudy-data-...

States are facing enormous budget challenges, so why are they offering large-scale tax breaks to wealthy tech companies for data centers and then not disclosing key details to taxpayers - including what they're supposedly getting in return? @goodjobsfirst.org

The Trump Administration’s first-day order: stop holding government contractors accountable for discriminating against employees. OFCCP's website was gutted, no new fines announced. Now they want to abolish the OFCCP entirely. What this means for workers: goodjobsfirst.org/does-the-ofc...

It’s important for everybody to understand that when your electricity bill doubles, it is doubling to pay for data centers which will be housing mainframes to operate AI using your electricity and your water, and you will pay through the nose to develop a technology to replace you

Data centers are a campaign issue in Virginia, which has the greatest concentration of them. “I’m tired of losing family farms to data centers,” challenger John McAuliff said. “...I’ll protect our communities and nothing else.” wjla.com/news/electio...

Consuming our fresh water and the power grid so a few can be billionaires and pay no taxes using knowledge they stole. Do we even have any seals of the apocalypse left? Gonna check AI to see.

In 20 years, maybe they can turn the data centers into retirement living, like they did with indoor malls

How many jobs does a data center add to the economy once it’s open and running? Joe and Bob.

What To Know About Data Centers https://theonion.com/what-to-know-about-data-centers/

[email protected] put together one of the best FAQs on data centers we've seen. Questions like: "Q: What do data centers need to run? A: Water, electricity, air conditioning, and other resources typically wasted on schools and hospitals." Take a read. theonion.com/what-to-know...

How we invest our infrastructure dollars shapes not just travel behavior but entire economies. A new report from @goodjobsfirst.org finds that every dollar spent on repair creates more jobs than new construction. See more in this post from @innovativedot.bsky.social 👇 ssti.us/2025/10/21/r...

BIG NEWS: We’re calling for a nationwide moratorium on new data centers. These facilities increase energy costs, consume huge amounts of water and expand dirty energy. To protect communities, we need to halt unregulated approval and construction until we know the risks. More here: fwwat.ch/49ogtrY