Confirmed: Defense Spending Creates Fewer Jobs Than Other Types of Spending

[AllentownJake]

Yesterday, I pointed out that a study by one of the leading economic modeling companies shows that military spending increases unemployment and decreases economic growth.

I have located a paper by economist Robert Pollin published in 2007 by The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst - entitled "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities" - which concludes:

We present in Table 1 our estimate of the relative effects of spending $1 billion on alternative uses, including military spending, health care, education, mass transit, and construction for home weatherization and infrastructure repair.


The table first shows in column 1 the data on the total number of jobs created by $1 billion in spending for alternative end uses. As we see, defense spending creates 8,555 total jobs with $1 billion in spending. This is the fewest number of jobs of any of the alternative uses that we present. Thus, personal consumption generates 10,779 jobs, 26.2 percent more than defense, health care generates 12,883 jobs, education generates 17,687, mass transit is at 19,795, and construction for weatherization/infrastructure is 12,804. From this list we see that with two of the categories, education and mass transit, the total number of jobs created with $1 billion in spending is more than twice as many as with defense.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/confirmed-defense-spending-creates-fewer-jobs-other-types-spending-0

Having trouble with table image for DU

[havocmom]

1. Great resource! Thanks for posting this

Bookmarked to shove down throats of RW idiots who insist the only good federal spending is defense spending.

[Lasher]

2. "...U.S. military personnel spend only 43 percent of their income on domestic goods and services...

(including import purchases in this calculation) while the U.S. civilian population, on average, spends 78 percent of their income on domestic products."

http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_151-200/WP151.pdf

[Fumesucker]

3. I have no doubt that is true, however...

Defense jobs other than strictly military tend to be very good paying jobs.

My son in law works for a military aircraft manufacturer and makes probably well over twice what he would doing the same type of job in a non-military related capacity. He is one of the very few union workers in my state.

Unfortunately for many years now our most talented scientist, engineers and technicians tend to have gone into military related R&D because to a big extent that is where our government has spent the really big bucks.

[AllentownJake]

4. That is probably true

but just because a few people benefit from something is no justification.

[Fumesucker]

10. I didn't say it was justification..

But, nevertheless, get rid of military spending and you'll get rid of a lot of higher paying than average jobs.

There's a lot that comes along with such a job, in the case of my SIL it is a very high level security clearance that takes a great deal of money and time to pass. *I* was investigated when SIL first got his clearance, it's that thorough.

[madrchsod]

5. my college econ 101 book stated that fact....

military spending is`t one of the four pillars of economic growth

[JCMach1]

6. But sure looks good added to GDP...

U.S. has been cooking the books with this since 2001

[StarfarerBill]

7. Except for military jobs...

...when the contractors want another war to boost their profits, and order their goons in DC to start one.

[notesdev]

8. According to this, defense spending COSTS jobs

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-wants-spending-cuts-he-should.html

[blindpig]

9. Ah, but the profits are to the moon.

Get your priorities straight, this is capitalism!