Mayor Vincent Gray Signs Bill Supporting LivingSocial’s Growth and Job Creation in D.C.

Waiting for government to give a helping hand to the start-up community and create jobs? You might not have to wait much longer, at least not in D.C.

District of Columbia’s, Mayor Vincent C. Gray recently signed a bill (The Social E-Commerce Job Creation Incentive Act of 2012) that allows D.C. to retain LivingSocial and to create over 1,500 job opportunities through the company’s growth and construction of a new, consolidated headquarters.

The bill allows LivingSocial to consolidate its six current leases within D.C.  into one corporate headquarters. The company currently has over 1,000 employees in the District—half of whom are District residents and nearly 5,000 employees worldwide.

The issue is once these start-ups grow, they leave. More times than often, to Silicon Valley or somewhere very close. But Gray is standing up for keeping start-up headquarters right in the founding the city – the nation’s capital.

“Keeping LivingSocial in the District is important so that we can continue to draw additional business and tech companies to D.C. and help build the new economy I talked about in my State of the District Address,” said Gray in The Insider, his bi-weekly e-newsletter. “This legislation, unlike any previous incentive package in the District, also ensures that the incentives received by the company are directly tied to the creation of new jobs for District residents.”

According to the newsletter, the new legislation requires that at least 50 percent of LivingSocial’s new hires be District residents in order to receive $32.5 million in benefits tied to real property and corporate franchise tax abatements.

In addition, the bill includes other commitments from LivingSocial, like hiring local youth in the Summer Youth Employment Program and assisting small businesses located along corridors affected by construction.

This bill is a step in the right direction in letting start-ups flourish where founded, get support from local government and most importantly create jobs, more specially tech jobs,  where needed.

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Kiera is the Editor at Black Web 2.0. Connect with her on Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.
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