Forbes Asia — May 2017

a pharmaceutical company that moved production out of New
York. The Poughkeepsie Underwear Co.? Crushed by the com-
petition. Its three-story factory was recently turned into shops
and government-subsidized apartments.
International Business Machines interrupted this grim
trend, for a while. It chose Dutchess County, of which Pough-
keepsie is the seat, as a place to make computers. At one point
IBM had 30,000 workers in Dutchess and across the river in
Ulster County. But those high-wage jobs didn’t last. Today the
company’s Hudson Valley employment is scarcely a tenth of
what it was, to judge from some digging by the Poughkeepsie

Journal (IBM won’t talk).

You could blame this collapse on the decline of mainframes.

But why didn’t something else take their place? Because a new

venture can just as easily open up in a state that is friendli-

er to employers. In 1982 New York tacked a “temporary” 1.18

multiplier on its already stiff income tax for businesses lo-

cated in certain counties near New York City, the list includ-

ing Dutchess. The multiplier remains in effect and was recent-

ly boosted to 1.28.

Burdis allows that taxes and labor costs (his machinists get

between $18 and $30 an hour) would be a little lower in the

MAY 2017 FORBES ASIA | 33

Taylor’s Michael Burdis, chief executive, and Bradley Quick, chief engineer: Their flooring nester doesn’t call in sick.