Billionaire pop star Taylor Swift's production company received $2.8 million in tax credits from the state of Pennsylvania through one of the only places in the U.S. that can help it prepare for a major tour: Rock Lititz in Warwick Township. There’s only one way Swift’s Tennessee-based production company, Firefly Entertainment, could get that break on its potential Pennsylvania tax bill: rehearse at Rock Lititz, the only place in the U.S. built expressly for highly technical stadium shows. No other rehearsal space in Pennsylvania qualifies under the state law championed by two Lancaster County politicians: former Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument and Republican House Rep. Bryan Cutler. The law created what is known as the Entertainment Economic Enhancement Program.

In 2023, Elton John’s production company, J. Bondi, sold a $1.565 million tax credit it received for holding its Farewell Yellow Brick Road rehearsals at Rock Lititz. A subsidiary of Erie Insurance paid $1,443,712 for Elton John’s tax credit to offset its Pennsylvania Insurance Premium tax, in effect netting $121,288, according to state records obtained by LNP | LancasterOnline. And GSL Government Consulting LLC picked up a 10% commission or $144,713 from Elton John’s proceeds for brokering the deal.

The tax credit that benefits stars who rehearse at Rock Lititz in Warwick Township like Taylor Swift and Elton John is the result of a law first championed by two Lancaster County politicians - former Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument and Republican House Rep. Bryan Cutler. Originally called the Concert Rehearsal and Tour Tax Credit, the Rock Lititz tax break was tucked into the 2016 state budget with a host of other new tax breaks. It was intended to attract investment by awarding tax credits to tour operators representing musicians for rehearsals and live musical performances within the state.

Jessica Conjar’s path through Retreat at Lancaster brought her sobriety and recovery from postpartum depression. But the behavioral health care company’s collapse in June has left her family out more than $20,000 and without the medical records she needs to get some or all of that money reimbursed.

Lancaster County Judge Jeffrey Conrad leaned over his bench and pointed at the video monitor on which an 80-year-old real estate investor was testifying from his home office in Brooklyn. Conrad had heard enough of David Silberstein’s expressions of concern about the patients and employees hurt by the collapse of Retreat Behavioral Health, a business that Silberstein had helped build over 14 years but insisted he had no day-to-day role in managing. In Silberstein’s telling, Retreat’s sudden collapse in June – resulting in the shuttering of clinics in Lancaster County, Florida and Connecticut – was triggered by the suicides of his friend and Retreat founder Peter Schorr and the company’s chief administrative officer, Scott Korogodsky. “Do not sling nonsense at me,” Conrad barked at Silberstein. “Are you really going to tell me that’s when everything went wrong?”

Guests will sometimes wait for an hour at Gracie’s on West Main in Upper Leacock Township just because they specifically want to be served by Deanna Coker. With a dedicated following of 30 or so regulars, she is, in the words of her bosses, a professional. Yet, until recently, in a decade of working full-time as a restaurant server Coker never got a paid day off or had health insurance. Most restaurant employees don’t. When Gracie’s on West Main added a service fee, it boosted worker pay and added some benefits. Coker still relies on tips, but she has paid days off, money towards health care and a retirement savings plan to which the restaurant contributes. The fees, also known as living wage fees, back-of-house fees or gratuities, are not common in the restaurant industry, but more places are trying them to attract and keep good employees, grapple with changing rules and help workers struggling with inflation. However, in some cases, customers have resisted or questioned the charges, leading restaurants to rethink their approach.

Lancaster County restaurant workers saw an unprecedented level of wage growth over the last two years, but now the growth has calmed down quite a bit, according to Ara Kharazian, Square Research lead and principal developer of Square Payroll Index. “In Lancaster, we're now seeing wage growth around 2 to 3% annually for restaurant workers,” Kharazian said in an email. “That's a far cry from the 15 to 20% wage growth we observed in 2022. The latest numbers are much more in line with the national trends we observed pre-pandemic.” Lancaster County restaurant worker average hourly pay: $

All a newly sober Yahaira Alicea had was a few dollars, a bad banking history and a lot of disappointment when she stepped into Community First Fund Credit Union. She was stuck. She wanted to move on from the Water Street Mission where she landed after spending a year living in her 2001 Honda Accord while working in retail but she couldn’t save money to afford an apartment. Then her Water Street coach brought Alicea to the unique credit union created for people in her situation.

On a typical day working for Lancaster Emergency Services Community Paramedicine, Jon Kauffman could find himself teaching infant CPR to a new mom, helping a cardiac patient acclimate to being home from the hospital and changing an elderly patient’s wound dressing. On each home visit Kauffman is also assessing the site for dangers, checking medications and housing conditions and often listening for signs of depression or mental health struggles. At 25, Kauffman’s license as a practical nurse has opened the door to a thriving career he never thought possible with a year of training. The Garden Spot High School graduate and Marine Corps veteran does everything an LPN is allowed by law. LPNs are not allowed to do initial assessments that outline a plan of care or give certain intravenous medications that are pushed with a syringe through a catheter or blood. “The opportunity that I have here is just incredible,” Kauffman said of the year old Community Paramedicine program, which is aimed at improving health outcomes of medically vulnerable Lancaster County residents. For years, LPNs mostly were the backbone of the long-term care workforce. In 2013, the majority, or 45%, of LPNs worked in long-term care, according to a study by the University of California San Francisco.

Ericka Miller, 32, of Lancaster Township, traded her 20-minute commute to a preschool for a 45-minute trek to Dauphin County to realize her dream job of being a kindergarten teacher. Miller said she took the kindergarten teacher job in Harrisburg a year ago to make the most of her college degree. “In pre-K you do use your certificate for teaching but the pay isn’t necessarily there,” Miller said. “My dream was to teach kindergarten and first grade.” Miller is part of Lancaster County commuting trends that include longer commutes and more Lancaster County residents drive to jobs outside of the county. The U.S. Census Bureau reports 84,487 – or 34.7% – of workers who live in Lancaster County commuted to jobs outside of the county in 2020, up from 32.6% in 2010 and 23.9% in 2002. That trend comes as Lancaster County commuters' drives to work have grown longer, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Behavioral health workers at Lancaster General Hospital are worried recent cuts to nearly half of their department and elimination of the third shift will put vulnerable patients at risk of longer stays and becoming agitated. Lancaster General Health officials counter that other systems are in place to handle the patients that were once the responsibility of laid off workers. Without the third shift, there will be fewer opportunities for behavioral workers to attempt to de-escalate situations, which could increase agitation and physical acting out in patients, a behavioral health worker told LNP | LancasterOnline. Patients could end up staying longer, the worker contended, which could hurt patient outcomes.

Growing up in Mount Joy, Brian Risser, 36, liked to work on cars whenever he could. He always liked the feeling of fixing something, so when Armstrong World Industries reinstituted an apprenticeship program in 2021 he took the chance to move from ceiling tile production to be a maintenance mechanic. “Every day is a different job,” Risser said of his maintenance mechanic duties. “I’m always learning something new. I get to work with my hands and tear things apart and fix them. There's pride in that."

The state’s Department of Labor & Industry Office of Equal Opportunity determined that the Lancaster County Workforce Development Board was a hostile work environment for people of color, according to a notice obtained by LNP|LancasterOnline. The state says there was no single incident in which a racial epithet was used, or that oral or written statements were made related to race. Rather, the state investigator said in the Aug. 8 report that there was “sufficient evidence to establish that the

Two weeks after resigning from his job as a financial advisor at Ambassador Advisors, 32-year-old Matt Knolle faced a court injunction barring him from working in his chosen field within 50 miles of Lancaster. Knolle said he left Manheim Township-based Ambassador because he was disgusted and fed up with how the company had handled the judge's orders following a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and fines. Within days of leaving Ambassador, he moved to start his own financial advisory company. Then, Ambassador hit him with a lawsuit. Because he signed a noncompete agreement, Ambassador sought a judge’s order to stop him from working in the area. It took almost a month of legal proceedings but in December the judge vacated the emergency injunction and Knolle was free to consult. His business, Haven Advisory Partners, is located in Westtown Township, Chester County, just outside of the 50-mile noncompete radius. Ambassador, through its marketing agency, declined to comment. Knolle says his experience is a prime example of why noncompete agreements should be banned, something the Federal Trade Commission is trying to do. Such agreements have been called exploitative by critics and anti-capitalist, functioning to suppress wages, hinder innovation and stifle competition. Supporters say the agreements are an important tool to foster innovation and preserve competition. The Society for Human Resource Management said in a January statement that the FTC should differentiate between agreements designed to limit labor market mobility and those designed to protect confidential trade secrets or strategic planning. “It amazes me that after spending years pouring my time, passion and guidance into all the wonderful relationships I have built with clients, that a piece of paper could possibly prevent me from continuing to do what I love,” Knolle said. “This type of restrictive behavior ultimately harms the consumer, as they should be the ones that dictate which businesses succeed.”

Mary Jones’ first question when Masonic Village introduced robots to her retirement community’s restaurant was, “Are they replacing the staff?” “We like our staff,” said Jones, 78, who has lived at the retirement community in Elizabethtown for 2½ years. The robots, nicknamed Joseph and Mary, do not resemble humans: Standing just under 5 feet tall, they are topped with a large screen and are programmed with a male and female voice. The robots roll across the floor and can carry up to four trays weighing up to a combined 80 pounds. Server Kelsea Eisenbise, who has worked at Masonic Village for 11 years, said a key part of her job is talking with Jones and other residents who come to Cafe 1911, where five servers attend to up to 200 people every lunch. “They are like a second family to me,” Eisenbise said of the people she serves. Knowing residents well enough to notice changes in their moods or health is as important as delivering their meals hot, the 30-year-old Eisenbise said. Industry-wide staffing shortages have left servers like Eisenbise scrambling with less time for residents amid complaints of cold food. Residents spend more time with service staff than anyone else at the facility, said Mike Alampi, 54, assistant director of dining services.

A declining immigrant workforce is making it difficult for Lisa Graybeal to find workers for her Peach Bottom dairy farm. A significant part of the reason is that there’s been a precipitous decline in the kinds of workers – immigrants – that dominate farming employment. Those who come to Pennsylvania on a temporary basis to work – such as farm workers – fell 78% from a high of 724,990 in 2019 to 159,304 in 2021, according to the federal Department of Homeland Security. The group also includes tourists and students. Graybeal said Hispanic workers with seasonal visas do the job domestic workers don't want to do. It’s that way for a lot of larger farms that can’t just rely on family, she said. “In agriculture, I think what I learned is that our labor comes from the Hispanic pool,” Graybeal said. “That’s the way it is. We have to get this country to admit this.” The drop-off in immigrant labor runs deeper than COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Nationally, economists say a two-year pandemic-induced plunge in immigration accounts for as much as half of 3.5 million lost workers. However, experts say the decline started before the pandemic with changes in immigration policy and that those effects are still being felt in the workforce. According to Homeland Security, legal immigration of new arrivals with lawful permanent resident status - sometimes referred to as a green card - to Lancaster County fell 64% from 545 in 2016 to 194 in 2021. In 2016, Homeland Security recorded 19 people with legal resident status who specifically said they would be working in farming in Lancaster County. By 2021 there were so few that the agency could not report the number without identifying individuals. Locally, immigrants make a small portion of the workforce, but lack of immigrants have an oversized impact in three types of work, where the jobs they tend to get are c

Ryan DeWald has won more than 100 professional cycling races since turning pro in 2003, yet a win in Europe had eluded him. In June, the Reading native won a race in Mondolfo, a village in central Italy that overlooks the Adriatic Sea. It was an especially sweet win because he's a Type 1 diabetic in an endurance sport in which, at 37, he's considered an old man. What did he win? A ham. At least it was an Italian cured ham. With his family, DeWald runs a bike shop in Mount Penn called Skyline Bike and Skateboard, which sponsors the Skyline cycling team. He's got a few sponsorships, a fledgling clothing line and a new foundation, #WinningtheRaceWithDiabetes. And yet, he makes about $12,000 a year, he said. And that's before medical expenses. "A cyclist knows how to stretch a dollar," DeWald said. While you watch the pro cyclists speed by in Saturday's Reading 120, as they make the grueling climb up Mount Penn past the Pagoda, consider their devotion from a financial perspective.