Right now, there are close to 24 million people in the U.S. who can’t find full-time jobs. The best way to fight poverty and unemployment? Build a clean-energy economy!
Public and private investments in clean-energy solutions (like renewables and energy efficiency) would expand job opportunities across all job categories and education levels. As the chart here illustrates, clean-energy investments create 2.4 times more college degree jobs than investments on fossil fuels and 3.6 times more jobs for workers with a high school education or less. Think of all the construction workers, whose industry has been severely hit by the mortgage crisis, who would be back to work!
Created by CPE Member Economists Heidi Garrett-Peltier and Sue Holmberg
October 2011
Source: Pollin, Robert, Jeannette Wicks-Lim, and Heidi Garrett-Peltier. June 2009. “Green Prosperity: How Clean-Energy Policies Can Fight Poverty and Raise Living Standards in the United States.” Political Economy Research Institute, June 2009.
http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/f6ce6c3f7805f06cc690c9f5287cc9c0/publication/349/
