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The Senate on Wednesday approved $54. 2 billion in subsidies to expand semiconductor production and other generation projects in the United States, and if passed in the House as planned, the budget would be a major stimulus to economic progress in small and giant cities.
In Taylor, Texas, a city of 16,000 others about 30 miles northeast of Austin, Mayor Brandt Rydell sees firsthand what it means to expand semiconductor production for communities, and is nearly speechless when he tries to describe the changes in a phone interview.
Last November, Samsung Electronics chose an abandoned five-million-square-meter site that the city never thought would generate much profit to build a semiconductor plant, which the South Korean company said would be its largest investment ever made in the United States.
Then, last week, the company said in a state filing that its long-term plans for Taylor could succeed at $192 billion to build 11 production plants, creating a total of 10,000 jobs.
While the filing is not a promise and Samsung declined to comment, Rydell said he is confident that the Senate’s approval of the semiconductor bill will lead to more investment in his city. mayors and other elected officials said they expected it to create 1. 1 million jobs in their communities over the next six years.
Rydell said the bill’s infusion of subsidies increases the fact that the manufacturer will make that investment point in Taylor (though Samsung declined to comment).
“I told other people that the $17 billion announcement last year was mind-boggling,” Rydell said. it’s going to be. “
This would be contrary to the fortunes of Taylor, who he said founded the city as a railroad in 1876 and for years “a fairly large economic force in the area. “But the structure of Route 35 through Round Rock west of Taylor in the 1950s hampered economic development.
The city’s largest employer is a texas Electric Reliability Council operations center, which operates the state’s electric grid formula and employs about 700 people. Samsung will employ 3 times more people.
In addition, Rydell said, more jobs are expected to be created as contractors arrive at the plant. And all the new staff will mean thousands more people will shop at local stores.
“This will be an almost endless opportunity for our businesses,” he said.
Other advantages also
Samsung is also donating budget to the Taylor Independent School District to create a Samsung Skills Center to prepare other young people to paint in the booming industry, which district Superintendent Devin Padavil said in a press release would “transform the lives of our students. “. “
And there will be impacts, such as better maintained parks and cemeteries and more trucks with chimneys.
Although Taylor has granted tax breaks to the company to attract Samsung, the allocation will boost its profits to $6 million next year.
Taylor’s lead monetary official, Jeffrey Wood, noted at a recent City Council meeting that the city’s budget last year was just $17 million. “We’re talking about $6 million. That’s a third of what used to be our overall budget. That’s how huge it is for the city of Taylor,” he said excitedly.
Wood listed some of what the cash will pay for: “Public protective equipment, portion equipment, backup turbines for City Hall and other facilities. Park improvements and sidewalk master plans, capital investments requested through municipal services. “
There are other replacement symptoms in the city, where according to the U. S. Census. In the U. S. , 70% of participants are white and only 0. 5% are Asian. Rydell said that when his wife recently bought groceries at the local supermarket, she saw that he had started wearing kimchi, a Korean-looking dish made from salted, fermented vegetables.
Big cities also win
Phoenix, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. announced in 2020 that it would build a $12 billion plant, is a city that sees the benefits of semiconductor industry development and expects more. By the end of 2023, this will create another 5,000 jobs in the city, Mayor Kate Gallego said in an interview with Route Fifty. Creating more jobs, he said, would bring other benefits, such as expanding the number of grocery stores.
Attracting the plant also meant Phoenix would come out of the pandemic “in a better position,” he said. “My purpose is to create more well-paying jobs in the city,” he said. In fact, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, in the industry you earn an average of $170,000 consistent with the year.
The mayor also noted that local netpainting schools in Maricopa are launching a program to train students to paint in the semiconductor industry.
In addition, Gallego, who worked on economic progress and crafting strategic plans for Phoenix’s metropolitan electric utility application before becoming mayor, said the plant would diversify the local economy.
At the same time, Gallego argued that semiconductor jobs for Phoenix would gain advantages nationwide. “I heard from some locals who were having trouble buying a new car because of the semiconductor shortage. Those challenges are that we manufacture them in the United States. More and more devices want semiconductors. Phoenix can lead the way.
On the other side of the country, Saratoga County, New York, expects the passage of the GlobalFoundries Senate bill to expand its semiconductor plant, as the company has promised.
Passing the measure “would help the semiconductor industry in Saratoga County, not only encouraging business leaders like GlobalFoundries to continue investing in our county, but also helping them attract supportive businesses, jointly providing the possibility of thousands of high-paying jobs. “to our community,” the county administrator said. Steve Bulger, in a statement.
He said the company has already helped Saratoga, “the fastest developing county in upstate New York,” with the state’s “lowest asset and sales tax rates. “
“We’re going to sow the seeds to expand the tech hubs of the places with the most potential so far that have been eclipsed by places like San Francisco, Austin or New York,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N. Y. , said Wednesday. Semiconductor Bill passed in bipartisan vote 64-33.
“This will help cities like Buffalo or Indianapolis create new innovation hubs and the result will be countless good-paying jobs and a bright long term for those regions for years to come,” he said.
The Senate bill, which includes bills for semiconductor studies, also brings hope to school cities. SkyWater Technology, a Minnesota semiconductor company, said last week it was working with Purdue University in Indiana to secure the bill investment to create a $1. 8 bill for studies and on-campus progression and production facility.
The facility would be “transformative in the Midwest, where the festival of corporate skill and investment is for the faint of heart,” John Dennis, mayor of West Lafayette, where Purdue’s campus is located, said in a statement.
Kery Murakami is a senior journalist for Route Fifty.
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