Stimulus Bill May Mean Jobs for Illinois
By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 4, 2009 8:20PM
While the U.S. Senate was debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the bill that President Obama hopes will pump billions of dollars and thousands of jobs into the faltering economy, the White House released a study indicating that the bill could save or create 150,000 jobs over the next two years. According to Crain's Chicago Business, those estimates "are based on the overall goal that the plan will create or save 3 million to 4 million jobs nationally over the next two years." (You can check out per capita details of the House stimulus plan over at the Wall Street Journal's nifty "Who gets what" map.)
While the bill faces opposition in the Senate, a provision in the bill that would require iron and steel used in construction projects be manufactured in the United States is raising eyebrows overseas. The European Union's delegation to the United States issued a statement warning that such provisions may be viewed as "protectionist" and that inclusion of such a clause in the bill may result in the US being brought before the World Trade Organization. The WTO, which succeeded the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs in 1995 is responsible for policing global adherence to free trade agreements. Obama says that he wants to make sure any language in the final bill doesn't signal protectionism. "I think it would be a mistake though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade," he said in an interview with Fox News.
Manufacturing (excluding durable and non-durable goods) employed over 650,000 people in Illinois in October 2008, (the latest month that numbers are available from the Illinois Department of Employment Security), and the Council of American States in Europe notes that primary metal manufacturing and fabricated metal product manufacturing employs over 125,000 people in the state.
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