By Rep. Paul Stam
April 14, 2016
On March 16, PayPal announced that it would gladly receive $3.6 million from the state of North Carolina to locate a new facility near Charlotte. Then on April 5th, PayPal President & CEO, Dan Schulman announced that it would not move to North Carolina because of the passage of HB 2. Certainly, this was not because of the bathroom/locker –room situation since the bill did not even apply to private business facilities. PayPal was incensed at the so-called failure of the legislation to include extra special protections for sexual orientation, gender expression and gender indemnity. PayPal lawyers apparently did not realize that this was the same law in effect on March 16. PayPal currently maintains its operations center and main office in Nebraska and has a technology center in Arizona as well as a data service office in Texas – all states with similar discrimination policies as North Carolina.
The problem for PayPal is that 31 other states (and the federal government) also lack those categories for extra special protection. So PayPal would be limited to 20 states:
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Illinois
Iowa
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Maine
Maryland
Minnesota
Oregon
Rhode Island
Utah
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
(Map key: Blue – Clear gender identity and sexual orientation protections, Green- Sex and sexual orientation protections only, Grey – Sex discrimination protections only)
But PayPal will need to narrow its list further.
In the publication Rich States Poor States [1] and the publication by the National Tax Foundation on Tax Policy, [2] the following states are in the bottom 15 in economic tax climate. PayPal would certainly have to avoid these states.
The 15 worst state rankings for fostering business development include:
| 2016 Rich States Poor States | National Tax Foundation on Tax Policy |
| 36) Washington | 36) South Carolina |
| 37) West Virginia | 37) Louisiana |
| 38) Maine | 38) Arkansas |
| 39) Pennsylvania | 39) Georgia |
| 40) Montana | 40) Iowa |
| 41) Oregon | 41) Maryland |
| 42) Hawaii | 42) Ohio |
| 43) Illinois | 43) Wisconsin |
| 44) Delaware | 44) Connecticut |
| 45) Minnesota | 45) Rhode Island |
| 46) California | 46) Vermont |
| 47) Connecticut | 47) Minnesota |
| 48) New Jersey | 48) California |
| 49) Vermont | 49) New York |
| 50) New York | 50) New Jersey |
Now PayPal is down to only 5 states:
Colorado
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
Utah
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But PayPal has another problem: It does business in 25 nations where homosexual acts are a crime. [3] So it would certainly want to reduce its footprint there. It would also want to stop its plans to expand to Cuba and would want to eliminate its operations in the People’s Republic of China. Each have brutal communist dictatorships.
Hopefully this research will be helpful to PayPal in its search for a new location more compatible with its principles.
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[1] Rich States, Poor States, Alec-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index, 9th Edition 2016. https://www.alec.org/publication/rich-states-poor-states
[2] 2016 State Business Tax Climate Index, November 17, 2015. http://taxfoundation.org/article/2016-state-business- tax-climate-index.
[3] See Press Release from Congressman Robert Pittenger, Pittenger on PayPal Decision to Cancel Charlotte Project, April 6, 2016. http://pittenger.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/pittenger-on-paypal-decision-to-cancel- charlotte-project
