Corporate subsidies, Foreclosures and renters, Benefits of prevailing wage laws, Harmful effects of video franchising laws

Good Jobs New York has released subsidy snapshots, user-friendly maps of Manhattan firms that have received job-creation or retention subsidies.  The goal is to clearly show where companies receiving subsidies and which neighborhoods are being left out.

While much of the news on the foreclosure crisis focuses on homeowners, Policy Matters Ohio has released a new report, Collateral Damage: Renters in the Foreclosure Crisis, which highlights the problems renters face when their landlords face foreclosure.   They are usually given no notice and often face significant costs when forced to move.  Policy Matters Ohio notes that in the Cleveland region in Ohio, nearly 30 percent of all residential foreclosures were rental properties.

Critics of prevailing wage laws -- laws requiring that companies hired by government to build public works must pay wages reflecting standards in the local industry -- have often argued that they drive up costs for the taxpayer.  In fact, as a new survey of the literature by the Economic Policy Institute emphasizes,  not only do prevailing wage laws not increase costs but they provide social benefits such as better workplace safety, more government revenues, and elevated worker skills in the local construction industry.

In a new survey, the Alliance for Community Media finds that in states with state video franchise laws in place, allowing companies to bypass municipal agreements in providing video services, there has been significant lost access to public, educational and government (PEG) channels.  PEG channels have see funding cuts, lost channels, loss of access to facilities for producing shows, and loss of cable access at public buildings like libraries and schools.