AT&T promised 7,000 new jobs to get tax break—it cut 23,000 jobs instead
In 2017, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson campaigned for Trump’s massive tax-cuts by promising that they would create 7,000 jobs with the $3,000,000,000 they stood to gain,
“every billion dollars AT&T invests is 7,000 hard-hat jobs. These are not entry-level jobs. These are 7,000 jobs of people putting fiber in ground, hard-hat jobs that make $70,000 to $80,000 per year.”
Stephenson also said that AT&T would invest in new infrastructure. But something happened on the way to the trickledown boon for workers. Instead of creating new jobs or investing in infrastructure, AT&T reduced its headcount by 23,328 workers while reducing capital expenditures by $1.4B
Don’t worry though, AT&T substantially increased executive bonuses over the same period.
Via Boing Boing
Yet another reminder that Corporate Welfare has yet to work anywhere ever, sort of a different take on “supply side economics”, that other great enduring political lie.