Did Obama really create 2.7 million jobs in clean energy?
Obama’s clean energy attack ad is below.
The voiceover says,
… while independent watchdogs call this President’s record on ethics unprecedented and America’s clean energy industry, 2.7 mllion jobs and expanding rapidly…
So the ad glibly gives the impression that Obama created 2.7 million jobs. Not so.
The though the ad sources the Brookings Institution for the 2.7 million jobs figure, Brookings actually stated,
The clean economy, which employs some 2.7 million workers, encompasses a significant number of jobs in establishments spread across a diverse group of industries. Though modest in size, the clean economy employs more workers than the fossil fuel industry and bulks larger than bioscience but remains smaller than the IT-producing sectors…
The clean economy grew more slowly in aggregate than the national economy between 2003 and 2010, but newer “cleantech” segments produced explosive job gains and the clean economy outperformed the nation during the recession. Overall, today’s clean economy establishments added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, expanding at an annual rate of 3.4 percent. This performance lagged the growth in the national economy, which grew by 4.2 percent annually over the period (if job losses from establishment closings are omitted to make the data comparable)…
So only 500,000 jobs were created during 2003-2010. But Obama didn’t become President until 2009. That means only about 125,000 jobs were created during 2009-2010 — that’s about 4.6% of what Obama’s ad implies.
Also note that “clean energy” jobs lagged growth of non-clean energy jobs.
….. and then they don’t work if it’s too windy or not windy enough. What a farce!
How many of these wind generators have been shur down due to high maintaiance costs once the subsidies ran out?
Amen to everything Donald DaCosta had to say…
The Obamaites have no interest in presenting verifiable facts because Obama’s adoring constituency have no interest, as evidenced by their blind acceptance of whatever exaggeration or derogation comes out of the democratic playbook. They consider themselves enlightened, critical thinking Americans disgusted with the American Capitalist, free enterprise, profit driven system, in tune with the environment and the changing times. The irony is the Democrats, led by Obama, are leading them around like the ignorant dupes they are, supremely confidant that whatever they say will be unquestioningly interpreted as fact. These are his constituents who in 2008 accepted him at face value based on the flimsiest of character references and despite concerted efforts to repress his past including extremely questionable personal associations with the likes of Bill Ayers, the Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, etc. These dupes are Americans only as an accident of birth. The 2012 election will be a test of how deep this problem goes. If after 4 years of blatant incompetence Obama is reelected the grand, free republic that was America will be no more.
Ah, that is the real question! One that can’t or won’t quantify.
And how many jobs in other industries were destroyed “creating” these jobs?
How many of those 125,000 clean energy jobs were created overseas, such as in the Chinese solar cell and wind turbine manufacturing sectors?