Report Shows Fox News Is Wrong About Green Jobs

A Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report released Tuesday finds that green jobs grew four times faster in 2011* than jobs in other sectors, continuing a trend of rapid growth in the U.S. But Fox News is still pushing the narrative that investing in clean energy is a "boondoggle."

The U.S. added more than 150,000 green jobs in 2011, including more than 100,000 construction jobs and 14,000 manufacturing jobs. In total, the green sector now employs more than 3.4 million workers in the U.S. The following chart shows that green jobs in the private sector increased in nearly every category in 2011:

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

This is not a new trend: the Brookings Institution previously found that the clean economy added half a million jobs between 2003 and 2010, and that clean tech jobs grew “more than twice as fast as the rest of the economy” during that period.

As the Los Angeles Times noted, the recent growth in green jobs “parallels a surge in public and private money” invested in clean energy in 2011.

Nevertheless, Fox News continues to distort the facts in an effort to portray government investments in clean energy as a waste of money. Fox News' Brit Hume claimed in 2011 that the Obama administration's green investments have “utterly failed to produce meaningful jobs.” Last month, the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes claimed on Fox News that “we haven't seen many gains” from these investments. Just this week, Neil Cavuto said on his Fox Business show that Obama's green initiatives have “not had the big tangible jobs bang for the buck that you would think.”

Faced with clear evidence that clean energy investments are paying off, will Fox change its tune?

*2011 is the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has collected data.