Hello Econominauts,
First and foremost let me say that I think Bernie Sanders is a fine human being whom I share a lot of views with. Unfortunately none of them are on the economy. Today's post will be about his plan to rejuvenate the American economy by spending an additional 1 trillion dollars to create jobs in the infrastructure sector. Supporters will claim that this plan is similar to FDR's approach when building the building the blue parkway among other national beautification projects, and while it's true they share some similarities, America wasn't 18 trillion dollars in debt at the time, so it was a more reasonable solution.
Here is Bernie's plan straight from his own website (https://berniesanders.com/issues/creating-decent-paying-jobs/)
"Introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over 5 years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure, creating and maintaining at least 13 million good-paying jobs while making our country more productive, efficient and safe."
On the surface this seems like an idea that could work. Invest money to create jobs which in turn boosts America's infrastructural ability to cope with increased commerce. A lot of people can get behind that, however, the math just doesn't add up.
1 trillion over 5 years equals 200 billion a year.
200 billion/13 million workers equals $15,384.61 per worker....this is where it stops adding up. Current minimum wage workers only make a little below that number now. Once you figure in Bernie's plan to raise minimum wage to $15 (see previous post), you see that this is FAR less than he believes people should be making at a minimum.
Then you have that pesky problem of affording building materials. But who needs that for infrastructure?
JEE
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