A few polls, like ones by INSIDER, Siena College , and HarrisX (sponsored by Amazon), mostly showed public support for Amazon coming to Queens, though responses were split when specific aspects of the deal like the $3 billion figure were mentioned.
A new INSIDER poll conducted on SurveyMonkey Audience may help explain why. The poll asked 1,117 respondents what the best use of $3 billion in tax credits would be: giving it to one large company to open a large corporate office, to several mid-size companies to open offices, to existing businesses in the area for growth, or to residents in the area to encourage spending.
The style of deal that was negotiated between Amazon and New York $3 billion in tax credits for a new, large office carried only about 4% of the vote in the INSIDER poll. It was the least popular of all possible responses, including "I don't know," which earned just over 12% of votes.
By far the most popular response supported giving tax credits to residents, which took the lion's share of the vote at more than 45%. Next was giving them to existing businesses, with over 20%, and mid-size companies, at 18%. The poll had a margin of error of about 3%. Those results held steady regardless of whether the respondent said they lived in an urban, rural, or suburban area.
There were some differences between how more liberal or more conservative respondents would allocate the tax credits, but they did not change the results materially.
Conservative respondents were slightly more game than liberals to give a single large company a $3 billion welcome mat, but still, only 7% of moderately or very conservative respondents favored that option.
Tax credits for existing businesses remained flatly popular across the board, with one in five thinking they would be the best option. Moderately or very liberal respondents favored giving tax credits to residents by a gap of eight percentage points over their conservative counterparts, who favored giving credits to several new mid-size businesses by five percentage points.
Altogether, though, the issue transcended politics: a small fraction of respondents think the best use of that kind of tax credit is to one major company.
Not even people who strongly supported the Amazon deal seemed to believe that giving tax credits to a major company would be the best overall choice. Later in the survey, we presented the gist of the Amazon arrangement: $3 billion in tax credits for 25,000 jobs in a new headquarters.
Of those who strongly supported that deal, only 10% thought one major company was the best beneficiary of such a tax credit when presented with other options.
Meanwhile, 40% thought residents would be the best recipient, 26% said several mid-size companies, and 19% said existing businesses.
What's clear is that given the option for giving $3 billion in tax credits, people would rather see pretty much anything other than a deal that looks similar to the one New York made and then canceled with Amazon. That polling supports Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stance that $3 billion in incentives should be used in other ways.
She previously suggested the cash could be put to better use than given in tax credits. The idea was dismissed as "nonsense" by some on Twitter who assumed she didn't understand how these credits work.
SEE ALSO: Amazon says it will still honor its agreements to assist New York City schools after yanking HQ2
