The Inflation Reduction Act Will Deliver Nine Million Good-Paying Jobs, Nearly All in Energy and Manufacturing

     What a week! The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in a U.S. airstrike. Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act and the Honoring Our PACT Act, a combined $680 billion in funding for American manufacturing and veterans, respectively. The Senate approved the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO in a 95-1 vote. The Justice Department charged four officers in the murder of Breonna Taylor. The truce in Yemen was extended again, bringing a total of six months of peace to the world's worst war. An anti-abortion measure was defeated in Kansas and President Biden signed an executive order to protect travel for abortion. The number of President Biden's federal judges confirmed by the Senate surpassed 75. Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay nearly $50 million for defamation to the parents of a Sandy Hook victim. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a historic trip to Taiwan. The July Jobs Report revealed that 528,000 jobs were created, bringing the total to 9.6 million since President Biden took office, and the unemployment rate fell to a 50-year-low of 3.5 percent. The cost of gas fell another 15 cents. The rate of Americans without health insurance fell to a historic low of eight percent. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris cast her 24th, 25th, and 26th tie-breaking votes to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, a $750 billion bill that will lower healthcare and energy costs while fighting climate change.

     There's a lot to love about this bill. It will cut prescription costs by capping out-of-pocket costs for seniors, providing universal vaccines to seniors, allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs, and much more. It will extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that have allowed millions of Americans to afford coverage. My personal favorite portion of the bill is the climate provisions, which will put America on track to cut carbon emissions by more than 40 percent by 2030. It will do it all without raising taxes on anyone making under $400,000 per year while making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share. One portion of the bill that hasn't been discussed enough is the impact it will have on creating jobs. In 2017, the Republican corporate tax giveaway promised to revitalize American employment: in reality, it created 1.5 million jobs according to the most generous estimates while leading to record stock buybacks and billionaires and corporations drowning in wealth that was not, never has, and never will be distributed to the middle class.

     The Inflation Reduction Act, meanwhile, will create NINE MILLION JOBS over the course of the next decade. It will include the following:

1. 900,000 clean manufacturing jobs. President Biden's American Rescue Plan Act fully restored all the jobs lost during the pandemic, including nearly 650,000 manufacturing jobs. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and CHIPS and Science Act will create five million jobs over the course of the next decade, including hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. With the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden is on track to create millions of manufacturing jobs throughout the decade, more than any president in U.S. history.
2. 5 million clean energy jobs. Just over three million people currently work in clean energy in the United States. This bill will more than double that number, creating a historic five million clean energy jobs over the next decade.
3. 400,000 clean transportation jobs. The United States has already provided tens of billions of dollars in funding for clean buses, ships, cars, and trains in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, electric cars will be the biggest winners: this bill will help the United States meet its goal of making half of all cars electric by 2030 and restore employment in the auto industry in the process.
4. 600,000 natural infrastructure jobs. Like in clean energy, this bill will more than double the number of jobs in natural infrastructure, or low-carbon infrastructure that utilizes nature to fit in more naturally to ecosystems that are too often completely destroyed by traditional infrastructure, literally building on the historic progress IIJA made.
5. 900,000 efficient buildings jobs. It's not just electric vehicles. Efficient buildings made from efficient materials were first announced as a U.S. priority last year with limited funding and voluntary pledges. This bill will change the game on efficient buildings, drastically lowering energy costs in the process.
6. 150,000 environmental justice jobs. Environmental justice is the newest aspect of climate control and a very important one, blending racial justice and environmentalism by tackling the fact that air pollution caused by big corporations overwhelmingly occurs in cities with majority black and brown populations. The Biden administration has already taken historic action on environmental justice, including by establishing an Office of Environmental Justice at the DOJ that recently sued the city of Houston and by mandating that 40 percent of clean energy benefits (and, therefore, 40 percent of these jobs) go to communities of color.

     The American Rescue Plan Act has spurred the creation of ten million jobs since President Biden took office. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Chips and Science Act will create two million jobs and three million jobs, respectively. Combined with this latest investment in creating nine million jobs, President Biden will have signed legislation to create 24 million jobs or more in his first two years in office. No president since Lyndon Johnson has been able to so rapidly pass through so much consequential economic legislation. When the Senate being split 50-50 and the House having the narrowest Democratic majority in history is added to that fact, what is happening under President Biden is nothing short of miraculous.