Corporate Tax Cuts Didn’t Lead to Hiring and Raises for Workers

The National Association of Business Economics’ (NABE) quarterly poll found that 84 percent of companies were not ramping up spending in the form of hiring, raises, and other capital investments.

“The corporate tax reform has not caused their firms to change hiring or investment plans,” NABE president Kevin Swift said simply of the corporate leaders the group surveyed.

The news came as no surprise to think tanks and advocacy groups like the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Americans for Tax Fairness—with some critics pointing to the survey as the latest evidence that “Trickle-down economics doesn’t work!”

Information has trickled in regarding corporations’ use of their financial windfall following the passage of the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, derided by critics as the #GOPTaxScam. The plan permanently slashed corporate taxes from 35 percent to 21 percent, while taxes for lower- and middle-class households are expected to rise in the coming years.

Even before the Republican Party pushed the plan through in December 2017, corporate executives indicated to former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn that they planned to give the extra funds to their shareholders instead of investing in the workforce, and several studies have shown that few workers saw raises and bonuses after the tax plan passed.

On Twitter, one critic wrote that the latest survey confirms that the tax plan, which former House Speaker Paul Ryan and President Donald Trump aggressively sold as one that would offer relief to the middle class, was “one of the greatest heists in American history.”