Why Dishing Out Cash to the Pentagon Is No Solution for the Unemployment Crisis

By Frida Berrigan, Tomdispatch.com. Posted March 13, 2009.

Fortunately for Lockheed Martin, once the U.S. economy began to crater, it could emphasize a new on-the-ground use for the F-22 -- as an instant make-work jobs program.

However, even there the plane's utility is questionable. William D. Hartung, director of the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, points out that, if the F-22 program is cut, the "job losses will be stretched out over two and half years or more, and could happen after the end of the current recession." In addition, Lockheed has had to back away from the 95,000 jobs claims, clarifying that more than 70% of those jobs are only indirectly related to the F-22, and that just 25,000 workers are employed directly on the plane's construction. Winslow Wheeler is the head of the Center for Defense Information's Straus Military Reform Project and his scholarship is built on more than 30 years of service at the Government Accountability Office and on the Senate Budget Committee, among other places. He points out that, when it comes to high-tech weapons, today's military-industrial complex bears not the slightest resemblance to its World War II predecessor as a job generator. As he describes it, in the early 1940s "production lines cranked out thousands of aircraft each month: as fast as the government could stuff money, materials and workers into the assembly line."

In stark contrast, the F-22, he points out, is essentially an artisanal product. "Go to Lockheed Martin's plant," he writes. "You will find no detectable movement of aircraft out the door. Instead you will see virtually stationary aircraft and workers applying parts in a manner more evocative of hand-crafting. This ‘production rate' generates one F-22 every 18 days or so." This is, in fact, what shovel-ready largely means in Pentagon stimulus terms these days.

War for Jobs?

Economists have also weighed in on why "war for jobs" as a way out of recession or depression has entered the world of mythology. An analysis from the University of Massachusetts' Political Economy Research Institute, for instance, finds that, for every one billion dollars invested in defense, 8,555 jobs are created. By contrast, the same billion invested in health care would create 12,883 jobs, and in education, 17,687 jobs or more than double the defense stimulus payoff.

It has often been said that World War II -- and the production stimulus it offered -- lifted the United States out of the Great Depression. Today, the opposite seems to be the case. The "war economy" helped propel the U.S. into what might turn out to be another great depression, and so, unlike in 1929, as our economy crumbles today, we are already on a global war footing.

As the Obama administration grapples with economic disaster and inherited wars, it will have the added challenge of confronting a military-industrial complex accustomed to budgets that reach almost three quarters of a trillion dollars, based on exaggerated global threats, unsubstantiated economic claims, and entrenched profligacy. When Obama's analysts pour over the budget, looking at all those overpriced weapons and plum contracts, they'll have to ask: Is each weapons system or program actually needed for American security and is it cost effective? Or are the defense contractors shoveling a load of shovel-ready bull?

© 2009 Frida Berrigan

See more stories tagged with: pentagon, jobs, stimulus package

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Program Associate at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative (ASI). She is a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus and a contributing editor at In These Times. The recently released Weapons at War 2008: Beyond the Bush Legacy,

co-authored by Berrigan and William D. Hartung, is an examination of U.S.

weapons sales and military aid to developing nations, conflict zones,

and nations where human rights are not safeguarded. 

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »