Work in a Sustainable Economy

Greening the U.S. economy is good for the manufacturing and construction sectors, which together accounted for roughly half of all the jobs lost since the recession started in 2007.

Most of the jobs created in the coming decade will be “middle-skill,” requiring workers to have more than a high school education but less than a four-year college degree. Workforce development is crucial to ensure that this group of workers has the skills that are needed.

Transitioning to clean energy from fossil fuels won’t be simple, and it will take several years, if not decades. The main mechanism is likely to be a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The “cap” is a ceiling on the total emissions allowed per year. Major emitters—such as coal plants, oil refiners, and natural gas producers—will purchase a designated number of emissions permits. Emitters may “trade” in permits if they need more than their share or find they can do with less. Over time, the cap is lowered and emitters are forced to conserve energy and transition to clean alternatives—alternatives that will largely depend on a vibrant manufacturing sector, able to produce the major components and subcomponents of new technologies in demand.

The largest solar-powered building on a college campus in the United States is at Oberlin in Ohio. It is not surprising to find buildings powered by solar energy on college campuses. Academic institutions are leaders in the research and development of clean-energy technologies. The components used to build the solar system at Oberlin had to be imported from Germany and Japan, because the United States lacked the capacity to produce the parts at home.

In the 1950s, the U.S. manufacturing sector was the driving force of the economy, employing more than a third of the private sector workforce. The total number of U.S. manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979 at 19.5 million. By September 2009, there were only 11.7 millions jobs in the manufacturing sector, and manufacturing employed less than 10 percent of the U.S. workforce. Over the past decade, the manufacturing sector has been decimated as firms closed down or moved overseas.

U.S. manufacturers remain among the most productive in the world. However, much of the competitiveness of U.S. firms hinges on policies beyond their control, chiefly health care policy and the value of the dollar relative to foreign currencies. Reform in both these areas is crucial not only to domestic manufacturers but to the viability of the U.S. economy as a whole.

Stepping up efforts to renovate buildings to be energy efficient could lead to the creation of millions of new jobs, particularly for workers in entry-level and mid-level positions. Buildings consume 43 percent of the energy used in the United States, making them responsible for a comparable amount of carbon emissions. The emissions are primarily a result of heavy reliance on fossil fuels for power, half of which comes from coal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the McKinsey Global Research Institute report that construction and renovation of buildings has one of the largest packages of potential environmental and economic benefits.

HITT Contracting is one of the largest commercial builders in the Mid-Atlantic region and a leader in the burgeoning market of green construction (which is becoming known by an acronym, LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). LEED certification, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, “is the recognized standard for measuring building sustainability.”

Poverty rates in rural America are higher than in urban areas of the country. Of the 386 counties that are persistently poor (have been poor for decades), rural counties outnumber urban counties by almost 9 to 1. Child poverty rates are higher in rural areas than urban, and rural children are more likely than their urban counterparts to live in extreme poverty (with family income of half the poverty level or less), and to receive free or reduced-price school lunch.

But there is trouble on the farm—starting with the difficulty a younger generation of farmers faces in getting started and earning a living. Many young families are discouraged from pursuing a career in farming by the expense of purchasing or renting land coupled with the inherent risks associated with farming—volatile markets, expensive inputs, erratic weather. The average age of a U.S farmer is 55. As the baby-boom generation retires, the United States is less prepared in farming than in most other sectors for the approaching vacuum in experienced professionals.

U.S. farm policy subsidizes the production of cheap calories instead of healthy foods. This explains how as a country, we are getting fatter and hungrier at the same time—a seeming contradiction that is borne out by statistics. It’s even the same people who are most at risk for both hunger and obesity. One in three U.S. children born since 2000 is at risk of contracting Type-2 diabetes, a diet-related condition associated with being overweight. Most of these children are poor. Meanwhile, food insecurity—a technical term for living with the ever-present threat of hunger—has increased by 25 percent since 2000.

Ask any CEO of a successful company or nonprofit organization what his or her most important assets are, and they will all say it’s the people who work for them. Unless workers have the skills needed to do their jobs, the increased efficiencies promised by new technology are worth little. A nation’s infrastructure is more than its roads, ports, bridges, transmission lines, and storage facilities. The human infrastructure that supports an economy is its true foundation, and the people most directly responsible for building the human infrastructure—educators, childcare workers, health care providers, and others—are what make it possible for workers to excel and the nation’s economy to continue growing. Countries prosper and flourish according to the structures they build to develop and sustain their human resources.

Research suggests that inequalities may be reduced by providing quality care and education to young children—the younger the better, say the leading researchers. Studies have repeatedly shown that low-income children who receive quality childcare starting at a young age score higher on achievement tests, graduate from high school at higher rates, and experience fewer behavioral problems. The biggest return on investment in education appears to be at the preschool level. Economist Robert Lynch argues that public investment in early childhood education pays for itself within a couple of decades by boosting lifetime earnings, increasing productivity, and decreasing rates of criminal misconduct. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, puts it more bluntly: “The foundation of all social problems later in life takes place in the early years.”

In 2009, U.S. workers experienced one of the worst downturns in the economy since the Great Depression. Job losses were the norm in almost every sector. But one sector that continued to see robust growth in spite of the recession was health care. People may decide to put off the purchase of a home or car, they may even cut back on food and other household needs, but they seldom have the luxury of scheduling a broken hip or heart attack for good economic times, or of ignoring a chronic illness or other debilitating condition.

One in six of America’s children are threatened by hunger and food insecurity. Recognizing the urgency of the problem, President Obama has pledged to end child hunger by 2015. Achieving this goal will require a committed and sustained federal effort to support children and families. It will also require a willingness to look for novel policy solutions.