Panetta: DOD cuts could up jobless rate by 1%
The 1.53 million job losses equate to 76% of all job losses in manufacturing during the recession.
Rose-Colored Glasses
Nationally, even if Secretary Panetta’s job loss numbers are off by as much as 2/3, the losses would be devastating. 500,000 defense job losses would exceed the number of unemployed individuals in West Virginia, New Mexico, Maine, Nebraska, Montana, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Delaware, Alaska, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, and North Dakota, combined.
1 in 4 Defense Civilian Positions Terminated
Roughly 200,000 defense civilians will get pink slips. That represents a dismissal of 7% of the entire Federal civilian workforce based on 2010 figures. This would be the equivalent to laying off the entire Department of Homeland Security plus an additional 17,000 jobs.
BRAC’s Looming Specter
Should the Armed Forces draw down another 200,000 active duty service members BRAC becomes less speculation and more a guarantee.
• Rural communities will be hit hardest as they rely on bases as economic drivers
• BRAC creates winners and losers, pitting states and communities against each other
A Decades-Long Saga
Base closures require significant long-term fiscal and organizational commitment from your local communities to:
• Environmental remediation
• Real estate and asset transfers
• Restoration of lost personal, sales and property tax revenues due to population loss
Hindering Our Military’s Flexibility
Hastily reducing our physical base infrastructure all but guarantees prohibitively expensive future investments should we elect to expand the armed forces when the global security landscape demands it.
Devastating State Economies
The top four states hit by defense cuts will be California, Virginia, Texas and Florida. These states are poised to shed a combined 379,000 jobs and $32.6 billion in gross state product.
Virginia will take the hit worse than any state in the nation on a per capita basis. Under sequestration, 122,800 jobs will be lost in Virginia. Virginia will lose $10.5 billion in Gross State Product, more than the annual earnings of over half of the Fortune 500 (more than the annual earnings of such corporate giants as Nordstrom, Whole Foods, Visa, Campbell Soup, Office Max, Yahoo, and Eastman Kodak).
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