As the Arizona legislature reconvenes to debate Governor Ducey's proposed budget, a key component is a proposed 2.5% "flat" income tax to replace the current system. During the short recess, a number of counter-proposals and criticisms materialized from the governor’s fellow Republicans inside the legislature and out — the most prominent of the latter being former governor Jan Brewer.

When jobs are scarce, many people turn to entrepreneurship and self-employment as a means of earning a living. A regulatory environment friendly to business creation and job growth will be central to local economic recovery for most cities.

Many workers must go through the often lengthy and costly process of getting a new occupational license when they move to a new state even if they have substantial work experience or a license in good standing from their prior state of residence. The ability to bring their license with them — license portability — doesn’t exist for most workers. This lack of license portability has real-world impacts.  

This study provides a plan for how states can end the harmful competition that the practice of corporate welfare encourages. It describes why corporate welfare is damaging to local and state economies and a zero-sum game from a national perspective. It also ranks the states based on how many handouts they make to favored businesses.

Barriers to employment for former prisoners extend beyond the obvious problems of low education level and limited work experience. Based on some states’ “good character” laws, which allow occupational licensing boards to reject an applicant merely because of a criminal record, such boards have denied former prisoners the opportunity to receive a license.

The federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has, for the first time in over 30 years, made significant changes to the federal tax code. The changes make the federal income tax system more amenable to new investment activity and job-creation largely by making the tax code less distortionary with respect to market decisions.

Immigrants to the United States make up an average of 14% of the population yet they make up 22% of all entrepreneurs. As a result, the immigrant entrepreneurship rate — the number of entrepreneurs as a share of the population — tends to be higher than the native- born entrepreneurship rate. While the average rate of native self-employed equaled 240 entrepreneurs per 100,000 people (or 0.24%), the average rate of immigrant entrepreneurs equaled 420 per 100,000 people (0.42%).

The three years following release from prison is the window in which ex-prisoners are mostly likely to re-offend. Successful entry into the labor force has been shown to greatly increase the chances that a prisoner will not recidivate. Yet govern- ment-imposed barriers to reintegration into the labor force — particularly occupational licensing requirements — can be among the most pernicious barriers faced by ex-prisoners seeking to enter the workforce.