- A new study complicates President Joe Biden’s claims that his administration’s massive climate agenda will benefit the working class, especially in states that have local economies heavily dependent upon fossil fuel-related industries.
- The study examined 130 million online employment profiles, representing about 300 million job transitions, to inform its findings regarding transitions from fossil fuel-related jobs into green jobs.
- An exception to the identified general trend of managerial-class occupations receiving a larger share of the transition’s benefits appears to be the adaptability of automobile industrial engineers, whom the study asserts are able to shift from working on internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs) with relative ease; the country’s most powerful auto manufacturing union has blasted the administration’s EV goals for being detrimental to workers it represents.
A recently-published study complicates President Joe Biden’s claims that his massive green agenda will allow for a “just transition” for blue-collar fossil fuel workers to land on their feet in his envisioned green economy.
Biden has routinely asserted that his anti-fossil fuel “Bidenomics” agenda will usher in a new green manufacturing and jobs boom in the U.S. However, the study, authored by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Wake Forest University and labor market analytics firm Lightcast, found that less than 1% of workers leaving fossil fuel-related jobs transition into green energy jobs, and that the supposed benefits of such a transition are unlikely to be evenly distributed across the country, geographically or socioeconomically. (RELATED: Biden Bureaucrat Has Supported Higher Energy Costs To Push The Green Transition. She’s On Her Way With A New Rule)
“I came to office determined to move away from the trickle-down economics and to focus on the middle class. Because I said when the middle class does well, everybody does well — everybody does well,” Biden said during a Wednesday speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, touting the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), his signature climate and healthcare bill, on its one-year anniversary.
“Folks, as I’ve said for a long time — for a long time: when I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said in the speech. “Not a joke. When I think climate, I think jobs. That’s the future.”
The wider Biden administration seeks “to ensure a just transition to clean industry, with new, good-paying jobs for American workers and health and economic benefits for communities” as it pursues its massive and transformative climate agenda, according to the White House.
The study highlighted that “the vast majority of workers obtaining green jobs do not come from carbon-intensive industries,” but instead from white-collar occupations such as sales management, software development and marketing. It found that workers without a bachelor’s degree and older workers are significantly less likely to transition into green jobs from carbon-intensive positions, while states like West Virginia have a notably low transition rate despite the high density of fossil fuel-related jobs sustaining their respective economies.
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While some states exhibit low rates of transition into green jobs, states like California have above average rates of green energy job adoption, the study asserted. To arrive at their findings, the authors analyzed 130 million online employment profiles, which represented about 300 million job-to-job transitions.
Its findings are notable in the context of separate criticisms of the administration’s push-and-pull approach to enacting its green agenda, which includes restrictive regulations on fossil fuel-related infrastructure and production alongside considerable subsidies for green energy development.
The Biden administration has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to spur a green energy transition between the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law. The IRA itself included nearly $370 billion for climate-related spending, a figure which may actually end up costing taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next decade, according to analysis conducted by Goldman Sachs.
The one exception to the general trend of managerial-class occupations receiving a larger share of the transition’s benefits appears to be the adaptability of automobile industrial engineers, whom the study asserts are able to shift from working on internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs) with relative ease, the study found. However, the United Auto Workers (UAW), one of the country’s most powerful unions and typically a stalwart supporter of Democrats, has slammed the Biden administration over its EV goals on the grounds that they may work against the interests of the workers UAW represents.
The union has so far withheld its endorsement of Biden’s reelection campaign, while the union’s president, Shawn Fain, has described the administration’s $9.2 billion loan to Ford and a foreign company as a “no strings attached” arrangement and accused the administration of “actively funding the race to the bottom with billions in public money” in a June statement.
The union is set to vote on authorizing a major strike next week, which could see 150,000 workers walk off the job.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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