The Secret About Jobs Military Contractors Don't Want You to Know

The Secret About Jobs Military Contractors Don't Want You to Know

Jennifer Doak and Miriam Pemberton | October 13, 2009

Editor: Miriam Pemberton


We've all seen the dismal reports of this recession in the papers. We all probably know someone who's personally felt its effects. Job losses in September reached 263,000, the worst in 26 years, and the real economy shows few signs of a near recovery.

Signs of a longer-term decline in real wages are also troubling: The 2001 recession was the first in which median incomes didn't bounce back afterward. A recent AFL-CIO report shows that only 31% of those under 35 make enough to cover their bills—and that the rates of unemployment and underemployment are much higher for younger workers.

At the same time, the United States is still mired in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. government spent an estimated $624 billion on the military, plus $188 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008. This is about 12 times what the U.S. spent on education in 2008.

So we have billions of dollars going toward wars without a foreseeable end-point or concrete benefit, and thousands of U.S. citizens without jobs. Congress has long argued to keep military projects in their districts because they keep constituents employed. But is the military really the best way to create jobs?

Researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst asked in a new study: What if the government took some of the money going toward the military and spent it instead on jobs in other sectors?

...

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6493

Read 14 page pdf file at above link for more detailed information.

For $1 billion, researchers found, the government could create 7,100 military jobs, 7,500 clean energy jobs, 10,400 health care jobs, and 16,900 education jobs. If Congress is serious about ending this recession, it's clear they need to take a closer look at the job creation potential of our taxpayer dollars.

It's never been about the cost. It's ALWAYS been about who benefits. We the people or them, the war profiteers.