Well, the projection of five million green-collar jobs is accurate and inspiring. It is inspiring to think of a federal investment strategy that can catalyze the American economy by creating new demand for clean energy and energy efficiency systems. It is inspiring to think about the investments in job training to help scale up America’s workforce to prepare to make, install, and maintain these products. It is truly awe-inspiring to think of the millions of Americans that can be put to work all over this country, in a huge range of occupations, moving America toward a clean energy future.

But it is not just inspiring – it is accurate. In the New Apollo Program, we argue for a $50 billion investment program over ten years. It is an investment in all sectors of the American economy: from green construction to energy efficiency retrofits; from our transportation system to our power grid; from our existing factories to cutting-edge research, development and deployment opportunities. Based on a comprehensive study on a very similar set of proposals that was done for Apollo in 2004 by economist and Nobel laureate M. Ray Perryman, this level of federal investment will create or retain at least five million jobs in America. Most of these are on-site construction, manufacturing, and transportation jobs – jobs in industries that tend to pay a family-supporting wage and benefits, and that have anchored America’s middle class for generations.

Dr. Perryman’s data show also that the economic benefits of the Apollo investment strategy don’t stop at on-site jobs. These investments will create millions more jobs in associated industries, like the trucking companies moving the wind turbines, the lawyers and accountants helping broker deals between new clean energy businesses, or even the small restaurants and stores catering to the linemen and women upgrading the transmission grid in countless towns across the country.

Other studies, such as the “Green Recovery” paper recently released by the Center for American Progress, also include the positive economic impact created by, for instance, lower energy bills as a result of more clean energy options. Lower bills equal more money in consumers’ pockets, equal more spending in the local economy, equal more jobs. (See CAP’s response to the Wall Street Journal article here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/11/su…

These “indirect” jobs are included in President-elect Obama’s green jobs calculations, explaining why he comes to the five million job number with a lower initial investment. The different numbers are by no means “squishy.” They are the result of different initial assumptions, leading to different results.

What is not in doubt is that clean energy policies and investments create jobs. Just look at Newton, Iowa, where laid-off Whirlpool employees are now making wind turbine blades for General Electric. Or Sacramento, California, where a disused nuclear plant is now home to a solar array capable of generating as much power as the plant ever did.

At Apollo, we are awestruck every day by stories like these, and by the sheer potential scale of the new green economy – an economy that can and should create millions of high-quality, decent jobs for hardworking Americans who want to make a decent wage while also fighting back global warming.

Darn right we’re inspired. Aren’t you?

Kate Gordon, co-director, Apollo Alliance

That is only 3,000 per job.

Two or three weeks pay and that is gone.

Lets create some real jobs that won't cust us a dime and they will boost the economy over night.

Go to http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com and read the articles "Global Economy" and "Your wages do matter"

Then send me the names of the CEO's and their companies that are offshoring our jobs so that I can add them to the "Wall of Shame" on my site.

All of the things in the news today such as sub prime mortgages, bailouts, etc. are SYMPTOMS of the real problem.

The real problem is that the American consumer accounts for 70% of the spending in America.

If 20 to 40 million of us are out of work as I suspect, you can see why our retailers, manufacturers and raw material producers are going bankrupt.

Put America back to work.

Offshore your offshore partner.

Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com