215981 external_news 1370239497 1475893589 The City of Austin, Texas currently supports 11 economic incentive agreements totaling $19 million in tax breaks for companies such as Visa, Apple, and Samsung in 2011 alone. City staff pointed to $4.8 billion in verified investment over that same time period and Austin’s job growth as a sign incentives are worth it, particularly for underserved populations. “We have measured the unemployed, the hard to employ –it’s about 10,000 people in Austin,” said Kevin Johns (MCP '77), the director of Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office (EGRSO). “And that population, we need to recruit the manufacturing and technology companies for those people.”

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