A Costly Climate of Inaction: Lost Jobs Analysis
Publisher: Small Business Majority, Main Street Alliance, American Businesses for Clean Energy and We Can Lead
Published: September 14, 2010
Highlights of the analysis
The U.S. Senate’s failure to act on climate and energy legislation cost the United States 1.9 million jobs … and there is already clear evidence that the investments that would fuel such new jobs are shifting to other nations, notably China.
Nearly 600,000 of the unrealized jobs were lost where they are now needed most -- the 10 states with unemployment rates over 10 percent: Nevada; California; Rhode Island; Florida; South Carolina; Mississippi; Oregon; Indiana; Ohio; and Illinois.
Even states with lower unemployment levels lost hundreds of thousands of urgently needed new jobs, including more than 300,000 jobs in the following states: Arkansas; Maine; Massachusetts; Minnesota; Missouri; Montana; New Hampshire; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; and Virginia.
The lost jobs forfeited by the U.S. Senate include major categories of employment that could have put Americans to work immediately with little or no additional training or education – since a large portion of clean energy jobs require widely-held skills that millions of Americans already have.
Comprehensive climate and energy legislation is still the best bet for kick starting the U.S. economy.
Downloads: A Costly Climate of Inaction |
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