A “green jobs” training program created by President Obama’s economic stimulus package cost $500 million, but has only produced about 6,500 jobs, according to calculations based on testimony this morning by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
In her prepared testimony for a House Oversight Committee hearing on green jobs, Solis said:
When calculated, that leaves just under 6,500 people who were otherwise unemployed and ended up getting a job that they trained for, a cost of nearly $80,000 a job.
When pressed on this point by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Solis said explained that people who are in the program may have been displaced, such as auto workers, and even if they didn’t get a job in the same industry they trained for, the green job training gave them an added credential.
“It costs a fortune to get very few jobs,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the committee chairman, observed.
Issa also questioned the definition of a “green job,” pointing out that some of the jobs that have been defined as green include working on diesel trucks, for instance.
In addition, Issa noted that environmental compliance jobs are defined as “green jobs,” but that just means if the EPA creates more regulations that businesses, the Obama administration can then claim more “green jobs” because of the compliance burden that results.
