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Let's put those numbers in more personal terms. Suppose in 1991 you had a household income of $30,000. If your income had gone up at the same rate as Intel's, by 1997 you would have earned $359,100. Yet you would have saved $13,600 in state taxes. And you would owe it to the clout you exercise: the ability to demand and receive special tax treatment.
KENTUCKY An Extra-Special Delivery for UPS
Among the variables that companies take into consideration in site selection is the labor pool. They are concerned not just with wage rates but also with the availability and quality of workers. So some states and municipalities, in partnership with business, have created industrial-education programs, mainly in community colleges. The schools' curriculums are often designed to train skilled workers for the area's most prominent industries.
The state of Kentucky took a different tack earlier this year when it agreed to create higher-education programs specifically designed to provide United Parcel Service of America Inc. with a steady flow of part-time workers to load and unload packages from airplanes and trucks.
Confronted with a need to build an international air-hub facility and with a shrinking supply of willing workers at existing pay rates, UPS advised Louisville and Kentucky officials that it would pull 15,000 jobs out of the state if it did not receive suitable aid.
Government officials complied. On top of the usual assortment of incentives, worth more than $80 million, they agreed to form a joint educational venture, a sort of UPS University, that will allow students to attend classes offered by the University of Louisville, Jefferson Community College and Kentucky Tech-Jefferson Campus. Students enrolled in what has been dubbed the Metropolitan Scholars Program will be able to earn technical certifications and two-year or four-year degrees.
Most important, college life will be designed to fit the needs of UPS. Student workers, the company says, "will experience a daily schedule that will essentially reverse their internal clocks. Class schedules, social activities and sleep patterns will evolve around the hours of the night shift at UPS." This means classes will be held between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., allowing students to work through the night and sleep during the day. Classes cease between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, the company's peak delivery period. Special dorms will be built to accommodate the night-working students. Tuition will be free, with the state and other sources picking up half the cost and UPS the other half if "the student completes his or her work obligation."
To Kentucky Governor Paul Patton, this is one for the win column. "We will ensure that UPS has the workers it needs," he said. To fiscal conservatives, there is something wrong with this picture. If UPS wants to assure itself an adequate supply of labor, it might try raising wages. But with well-paying jobs now plentiful in the area, the company was having difficulty attracting a sufficient number of workers for part-time work, much of which is on the night shift. College students--the traditional source of night-shift workers for UPS--were not responding to the $8.50 an hour wage it offered, even with benefits. So the state will, in effect, create more college students.