Clean Energy Economy Should Boost Employment Rates and Create Blue Collar Jobs

With lawmakers moving forward on a bold new piece of
climate legislation in the House, a green job boom seems to be on the horizon.

A report released last week finds that investing in a clean
energy economy should help alleviate a soaring unemployment rate and improve
job prospects across a wide range of sectors and experience levels.

The Political Economy Research
Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (PERI) report focuses
on job creation and the investment opportunities that stand to emerge in a
clean energy economy.

The
report concluded that blue collar workers would be among the biggest
beneficiaries of a nationwide clean energy boost. Workers with "relatively
low educational credentials" stand to gain the most. An estimated 870,000
of the predicted 1.7 million (net increase) jobs arising from the move to a clean
energy economy will be accessible to workers with high school degrees or less.

In
addition to generating new opportunities for blue collar workers, a clean
energy economy is projected to bring about a drop in the overall unemployment
rate and a raise in per capita earnings for current low-income workers.

The total bounty of a clean energy economy is projected to
include a 300 percent improvement in job opportunities over those found in
fossil fuel fields and a significant reduction in day-to-day living costs for
members of low-income households.