Date: March 4, 2019
Contact: mediacenter@freeandfairmarketsinitiative.org
They Said It!
Virginia Lawmaker Says Local Communities “Are Not Going To Get Any Benefit From This Amazon Deal.”
State Rep. Lee J. Carter says local communities will bear the burden for Amazon HQ2 development in Northern Virginia.
What we have here in Northern Virginia is an area with extraordinarily low unemployment already. We’ve got a situation where we already have more available positions than we have people to fill them. So what we have in Northern Virginia is not a crisis of joblessness. We have a crisis of affordability, and when you’re cramming 25,000 new positions into an area like that, that means there’s going to be a parade of U-Hauls coming down the highway. You’ve got 25,000 new families competing for the same housing stock. So you’ve got people who are working two and three jobs just to get by that have already seen a 20 percent increase in their rent, and that’s before a single shovel has hit the ground, so there are a lot of people who are already barely making ends meet who are not going to get any benefit from this Amazon deal, who are in fact going to see their lives get worse. (CNBC, “Squawk On The Street,” 3.1.19)
To watch the full clip, click here.
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The Free & Fair Markets Initiative (FFMI) is a non-profit coalition of businesses, consumer advocacy groups, workers and community activists committed to scrutinizing and highlighting emerging market trends that are stifling competition and innovation, influencing federal and local government spending, putting consumer data in harm’s way and limiting consumer choice. For a list of members, please visit https://freeandfairmarketsinitiative.org/about-us/members/. For more information on the Free & Fair Markets Initiative, please visit https://freeandfairmarketsinitiative.org.
