Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
Free Exchange thinks about what makes a job “green” and how “green jobs” should be counted.
How to define green jobs may not seem like a pressing concern, but it does matter, because the parameters of the population determine its observable characteristics. That in turn will impact our views about green jobs and our interest, or lack thereof, in trying to create them. So let’s look around. The Bureau of Labour Statistics actually has two definitions, one based on output and one based on process. The output criterion includes establishments that actually create products with environmental benefits. At the wastewater facility, for example, all the jobs are green. The process category is broader and will count workers who complete environmentally helpful tasks at establishments that are not necessarily classed as green overall—so, for example, the guy at Dupont who tests the water has a green job. Having two definitions may seem confusing, but it it’s good to acknowledge ambiguity where it is known to exist.
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Other outfits, however, want to pin it down. But their estimates vary widely.
The post concludes as follows:
This points to an interesting conclusion. Environmentalists sometimes exaggerate the size of the green economy. This is, presumably, because it makes the sector seem more important to the economy as a whole. But as we see with the growth in rewnewables, the numbers may be more compelling when you winnow it down to the categories of strength. And for advocates, the broader definitions may actually be counterproductive. People find obvious exaggerations unconvincing, even offensive. It may be unfair to the environmental crowd that they’re being hammered by the spectacular failure of Solyndra. But it was unfair to the taxpayers that politicians were pushing that company so hard. People may have a greater tolerance for uncertainty than politicians think. If politicians want to create “green jobs”—and whether they should try to do so is another question—candour is better than hype. More sustainable that way.
Mike Konczal points out that a “lost decade” for jobs is built one month at a time.
… many continue to argue whether this month was good or that month was off. But stepping back, it looks to have been a lost year since last September [2010]. In general, we are below the number of jobs our economy can produce, leaving millions unemployed and unproductive. We are treading water with no hopes of serious moves in fiscal, monetary, and housing policies that could kick the economy and get it moving again. When we wonder how a lost decade can pass, remember that a decade is just a series of months one after the other, a series of months where it’s never quite bad enough to jolt action, compiled into years that are tossed down the drain.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
Economix runs down income statistics about the top 1 percent of American households.
American households right at the 99th percentile (that is, the cut-off for the top 1 percent) will earn about $506,553 in cash income this year, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. The income curve is very steep at the high end, meaning that people just a few tenths of a percentile point above that make much, much more. A family at the 99.5th percentile, for example, makes $815,868; its neighbor at the 99.9th percentile makes more than double that, at $2,075,574 a year.
Stateline.org maps changes in state and local government employment between July 2008 and August 2011.
