Gulf Job-Losses Hocus-Pocus

David Kreutzer / September 17, 2010

The Obama administration recently issued an inter-agency report on the employment effects of its deep-water drilling moratorium. The Administration finds employment effects that are roughly half of those from a variety of other estimates. However:

• If the Administration were consistent in its logic, its job-loss estimates would double or quadruple to 20,000–40,000;
• The authors forget to mention that the lost oil production will require spending billions of dollars more per year on imported oil; and
• The report ignores the impacts of the de facto moratorium on shallow-water drilling

The anonymous authors of the report claim that their estimates have the advantage of more recent employment data. However, the more recent employment data has nothing to do with their calculation. The lower jobs impact is the result of cutting the estimate of jobs per dollar spent by 40–60 percent from the Administration’s own estimate—the one used to judge the supposed positive employment effects of its stimulus package. (more…)