Green Jobs Demonstrate The Perils Of Government-Directed Economic Growth

Green Jobs Demonstrate The Perils Of Government-Directed Economic Growth

Part of President Biden's Build Back Better initiative promises to "create good-paying union jobs and train Americans for jobs of the future." The unspoken theory behind this initiative is that green jobs will offer a pay premium to workers compared to jobs in the fossil fuel industry. It also reflects the Administration's view that sustainable and robust economic growth is driven by the federal government. Both of these premises are ill-founded. Starting with the pay premium of green jobs, a study commissioned by North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU) reports that tradespeople "consider projects in oil and natural gas to have better perceived wages, benefits, and opportunities than renewables projects. They also report that the oil and natural gas industries offer projects with longer durations than those in renewables industries". Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) confirm their perspectives. Based on the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, the average annual wage for a solar photovoltaic installer is $46, 470, which is less than the average annual wage for many jobs in the oil and gas industry such as a derrick operator ($47, 920 annually) or an underground mining machine operator ($52, 400). An October 21, 2020 NPR editorial