October 22, 2010
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Investing in Transportation Infrastructure Creates Jobs

In Pennsylvania, we are in the midst of an unemployment crisis.

Hard working men and women around the state cannot find work. Some are struggling to provide for their families on their modest unemployment compensation. Others have given up and are living day-to-day.

There are actions that can be taken to boost employment that helps all of us in the long run.

Pennsylvania has a problem with a perpetually crumbling transportation infrastructure. Our roads and bridges are eroding right before our eyes. According to the Pennsylvania Transportation Advisory Committee’s Transportation Funding Study that was released in May 2010, Pennsylvania has the fourth oldest bridge inventory in the nation. It has 5,646 structurally deficient bridges.

The state legislature faces a looming deficit and hard decisions to make on how to adequately fund our transportation infrastructure.

On the heels of President Obama’s $50 billion transportation spending program, the president’s Council of Economic Advisors released a report showing that investing in transportation creates middle class jobs.

With the staggering unemployment numbers and our decrepit roads and bridges, this report proves that by investing in repairing our transportation infrastructure we can put Pennsylvanians back to work.

The report suggests that the biggest jump in employment would come in our struggling construction industry, which saw 21,000 jobs disappear in September alone. The unemployment rate for construction workers across the country has risen above a staggering 17 percent.

Investing in transportation would not only put our construction workers back to work, but it would also create much-needed manufacturing and retail trade jobs. Rebuilding water and sewer systems is good for the environment and provides jobs. Upgrading our electric grid saves money and generates employment opportunities.

Dedicating funding to infrastructure creates a ripple effect throughout the job market. Building roads not only requires construction workers, but also grading and paving equipment, fuel to run the machines, hand tools of all sorts, raw materials, surveyors to map the sites, engineers, site managers, and even accountants to keep track of the costs.

In remarks before the Senate Transportation Committee earlier this year, Governor Rendell showed us the direct impact the federal stimulus funds for transportation had on Pennsylvania’s job market.

In June, just this year, on top of the 8,448 Pennsylvanians working on stimulus funded construction sites to repair our roads and bridges, there were 2,957 additional people at work in our factories making the asphalt, steel and concrete needed for these projects.

While carrying out the stimulus work orders, Pennsylvania purchased 4,300 more tons of steel, pushing our steel purchase up 43 percent in just ten months in 2009, compared to what we purchased in all of 2008.

We purchased 400,000 more cubic yards of concrete, representing a 40 percent increase in ten months compared to the amount we purchased in all of 2008.

We purchased 3.2 million tons of asphalt, increasing our state asphalt purchase by nearly 50 percent in these ten months compared to all of 2008.

The most important part of these statistics is that 95 percent of the concrete used, 50 percent of the steel used, and every bit of asphalt used on these projects was made right here in Pennsylvania.

It is no secret that the economic collapse has taken a significant toll on families and industries at all ends of Pennsylvania.

We can continue to sit back and assume that this recession will end itself or we can find ways to create jobs.

Funding transportation will not only make our roads and bridges better for generations to come, but it will create jobs for the middle class and the people that need them the most.

www.senatorhughes.com