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Corporate Welfare Information Center


“The $150 billion for corporate subsidies and tax benefits eclipses the annual budget deficit of $130 billion. It’s more than the $145 billion paid out annually for the core programs of the social welfare state: Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), student aid, housing, food and nutrition, and all direct public assistance (excluding Social Security and medical care).”

“After World War II, the nation’s tax bill was roughly split between corporations and individuals. But after years of changes in the federal tax code and international economy, the corporate share of taxes has declined to a fourth the amount individuals pay, according to the US Office of Management and Budget.”

Boston Globe series on Corporate Welfare

Corporate Welfare Basics

RACHEL’s Environment & Health Weekly newsletters:

Corporate Welfare Examples

Common Cause Reports:

  • Return on Investment: The Hidden Story of Soft Money, Corporate Welfare and the 1997 Budget & Tax Deal
  • Corporate Welfare Issues Page

Green Scissors Campaign – Environmentally-Damaging Corporate Welfare

Friends of the Earth — “Economics for the Earth” Reports:

  • Green Scissors 2000
  • Green Scissors ’99 – $51 Billion in anti-environmental corporate pork
  • Green Scissors ’98 – $49 Billion in anti-environmental corporate pork
  • Green Scissors ’97 – $36 Billion in anti-environmental corporate pork
  • Green Scissors ’96 – $38.8 Billion in anti-environmental corporate pork 
  • Green Scissors report (’95)
    (34 choice examples of environmentally damaging corporate welfare projects)
  • Dirty Little Secrets report
    (15 of the most unfair and environmentally damaging tax breaks)
  • Road to Ruin Report
    ($10 Billion Worth of harmful, unneeded and environmentally damaging new highway projects)

Taxpayers for Common $ense — Publications/Reports

  • The Waste Basket — a weekly bulletin of wasteful government spending
  • Road to Ruin II (even more pork barrel highways)
  • Fossil Fuel Subsidy Factsheet
  • Blank Check: The Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of Creating a New “Takings” Entitlement

Citizens for Tax Justice — Giveaways to the Rich and Corporations

  • The Hidden Entitlements: Tax Loopholes from A to Z

Citizens for Leaders with Ethics and Accountability Now! (CLEAN)

  • Sports Stadiums
  • HUD Abuses

Corporate Welfare Mailing lists

Other Resources on Corporate Welfare

Take the Rich Off Welfare, Odonian Press, Zepezauer and Naiman.
191 pages; costs $9.00; available by calling 1-800-732-5786

A couple of the fine statistics covered are:


“If you cut 26 percent of the welfare now given to the rich you have instantly balanced the budget.”

“If you cut out weathfare, you could pay off the national debt in 11 years.”


Sample Legislation to Reform Corporate Welfare
Getting Business Off The Public Dole: State and Local Model Laws to Curb Corporate Welfare Abuse

An Act To End Business Welfare Abuse: Proposed State Legislation

Reports, Articles and Testimony on Corporate Welfare

Essential Information (Ralph Nader) Press Releases on Corporate Welfare
Cato Institute (a libertarian think tank)

  • The Cash Croppers: The Top Two Percent Of America’s Farm Subsidy Recipients 1985-1994
  • City Slickers: Farm Subsidy Recipients In America’s Biggest Cities
  • Faking Takings: Farm Subsidies and Private Property in Perspective
  • “Freedom to Farm”: An Analysis of Payments To Large Agribusiness Operations Big City Residents and the USDA Bureaucracy
  • Fox in the Henhouse: Cash, Crime & Conflict of Interest in Federal Farm Subsidy Programs

Common Cause’s Position on Corporate Welfare

Bye-bye corporate tax revenues (1999 CSM article)

Boston Globe’s Series on Corporate Welfare:

Philadelphia Inquirer’s Series on Corporate Welfare:

The more corporate welfare received, the more layoffs…

This is a list of the 8 corporate welfare recipients that were listed in the first
article of the Inquirer series, comparing corporate welfare received to
the number of people layed off in that time (1990-1994).

       Welfare recieved           Employment
GM       $110,600,000              -104,000
IBM        58,000,000              -100,000
AT&T       35,000,000                -1,077  * #
GE         25,400,000               -80,000
Amoco      23,600,000                -8,300  *
DuPont     15,200,000               -29,961
Motorola   15,100,000                +9,600  *
Citicorp    9,600,000               -15,700

* exceptions to the trend
# AT&T layed off 40,000 people shortly after this accounting

see also: Tax Subsidies Reward Corporate Downsizers (Citizens for Tax Justice report)


Articles and letters to the editor about Corporate Welfare:

  • The Real Welfare Cheats: Corporate America
  • The Other “Welfare Queens”
  • Now Is Not the Time To Increase Corporate Welfare

Corporate Welfare Mailing Lists

There are 2 national email mailing lists (listserves) that deal with corporate welfare issues.

OUCH! – newsletter of Public Campaign (sign up here)

The Waste Basket – A weekly bulletin of wasteful government spending from the Taxpayers for Common $ense.

Also, Essential Information (a Ralph Nader group) used to run a low volume announcement list on corporate welfare. The archives are here.