Environmental Leader

The U.S. can create 2 million jobs over two years by investing in a rapid green economic recovery program, according to “Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy,” a report prepared by the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst under commission by the Center for American Progress.

According to the report, this $100 billion green investment package would create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry, and would reduce the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent over two years.

The report shows that, in addition to creating 2 million jobs nationwide over two years, this $100 billion green economic recovery package would:

• Create roughly triple the number of good jobs-paying at least $16 dollars an hour-as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.
• Reduce the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent from 5.7 percent (calculated within the framework of U.S. labor market conditions in July 2008).
• Bolster employment especially in construction and manufacturing. Construction employment has fallen from 8 million to 7.2 million jobs over the past two years due to the housing bubble collapse. The report says that the Green Recovery program can, at the least, bring back these lost 800,000 construction jobs.

The report shows the vast majority of the 2 million jobs would be in the same areas of employment that people already work in today, in every region and state of the country.