About Allentown NIZ Jobs

Special Allentown tax zone creates many job openings, but few filled by residents yet
By Colin McEvoy | The Express-Times

" Nancy Dischinat, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Investment Board, said she expects the number to increase drastically in the next few weeks, especially as even more jobs become available. She said 1,023 people attended the residents-only job fair on Thursday alone."

My Comments About The Article AboveI'm not surprised that only 16 have landed jobs. Hold your horses it's early yet. It also should be pointed out that all Pennsylvania taxpayers had a portion of their money go into this project. Therefore everyone should have an equal shot whether they live in Allentown or not.

For a very long time I've stated repeatedly the majority of people living downtown aren't a bunch of lazy welfare money grabbers living off government's teat if they had a choice. Although people have argued with me about this, I will state once again, what we need are blue collar jobs. Most are never going to pursue a master's degree. It may be because many are not born to become scholars either because they don't have the brains or decided they want to do less complex work. Things such as manufacturing, installers, repair or in the building trades.

For every engineer we need dozens of workers to carry out their designs. For every boss we need tens of workers for them to oversee in the first place.

Face it, when 1,023 people lined up in the first round for these (crappy) minimum wage mostly part time jobs there's a huge need for the kind of jobs I've described. Until not only Allentown but in every city these jobs are made available things will never improve.

The fallacy that Allentown residents are a bunch of lazy people who don't want to work has been completely disproved by the sheer numbers who stood in line on that day.

I'll give you another couple of examples from my own personal observations. There is a bus that leaves Allentown everyday early in the morning headed to the warehouses in Upper Macungie. I've seen this bus at times so packed there was standing room only and it required a second bus be pressed in service to haul them all. In addition (although it's illegal) two or three gypsy vans loaded to the hilt also made the trek. They would pull up to certain warehouses where people would get out and stand in the rain, cold or hot sun in large groups of 20 or more. Warehouse managers would then come out and round up whatever number of workers they needed that day. The rest had to go back to Allentown empty handed.

So don't even try and tell me people from Allentown aren't desperate for work!

Here's The Kicker
Allentown's NIZ(ones) are going to end up costing Pennsylvania taxpayers up to $1 billion dollars. So far none of these brought in business from outside of the state. These warehouses (which pay $10 on up) were built almost entirely by private investors. Not only that but they have brought in dozens and dozens of huge businesses far beyond the borders of this state from which they came. Such names as Ocean Spray, Sam Adams, Coca Cola, Nestle and many others.

In other words these warehouses have provided LANTA with passengers and many from Allentown with good paying jobs. Allentown workers may not be the only ones working out there, but in the end both Pennsylvania and Allentown are getting far more bang for the buck.

About The NIZ
I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that Allentown won't look prettier or draw people into the city. BUT I can say as far as a return on investment it's not the cat's meow for either these new jobs or for taxpayers in Pennsylvania if the NIZ can't bring in out of state businesses.

All the restaurants, hotels and office owners and occupiers so far come from just beyond the city's limits. This (so far) only benefits local investors who already are here in Pennsylvania and possibly Allentown itself. It does little to improve the finances for the majority of residents who will land minimum wage part time jobs. Nor will Pennsylvania's overall tax revenues increase unless out of state businesses start relocating to it. Other then the Phantoms, so far that isn't happening.

No I'm not against revitalizing Allentown. There's nothing more I'd like to see. My opposition against the NIZ was never ever about that. I'm not a naysayer. What concerns me is forcing Pennsylvania taxpayers to invest in a strategy that has little hope of providing a profitable return for the state. Nor creating the kind of jobs which will support a family.

Yes the city government of Allentown itself will greatly benefit. However it may be the only one.* Property owners could see an increase in taxes because of increased appraisal values if they pull this off (also causing rents to go up).

* Surrounding burbs lost some of their businesses to the NIZ. We've even seen some businesses relocating from within the city itself causing hardships for landlords located outside the NIZ.

* So far no out of state businesses have come here. Therefore the number of new high paying fulltime jobs have not increased significantly. Allentown has a population of 118,974 (2012). Allentown has over a 10% unemployment rate (11,897 people) <<< This is a incorrect number. There are about half as few or less.-- See Comments Below

After we invest nearly $1 billion there will be few more then 700 part time minimum wage jobs available. At that rate we could have given them each a million dollars and still have $200-$300 million left over!