Base closures do not raise local unemployment and can even help it

Evidence

Focusing more specifically on the jobs question, a Government Accountability Office study showed that the majority of communities affected by closures did not experience rising unemployment. A Congressional Research Service study actually found a drop in unemployment rates in communities where bases closed compared to the national average. A 1998 Pentagon study found that only 14 percent of federally employed civilians eligible to claim unemployment insurance following a base closure actually claimed it, suggesting they found other jobs or left the workforce. A study of 3,092 counties and 963 domestic base sites over twenty years also contradicted “doom and gloom” predictions about job losses. It showed instead that closure had a positive impact on employment after only two years, perhaps because of government conversion assistance and “community optimism (following apprehension).” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 929

Focusing more specifically on the jobs question, a Government Accountability Office study showed that the majority of communities affected by closures did not experience rising unemployment. A Congressional Research Service study actually found a drop in unemployment rates in communities where bases closed compared to the national average. A 1998 Pentagon study found that only 14 percent of federally employed civilians eligible to claim unemployment insurance following a base closure actually claimed it, suggesting they found other jobs or left the workforce. A study of 3,092 counties and 963 domestic base sites over twenty years also contradicted “doom and gloom” predictions about job losses. It showed instead that closure had a positive impact on employment after only two years, perhaps because of government conversion assistance and “community optimism (following apprehension).” In short, the study concluded, the long-run impacts of base job reductions are “overall positive.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 929

Categorization

• XREF: Directly challenges the ‘bases create jobs’ argument that local base supporters (in Vicenza and elsewhere in the book) use to justify keeping bases. — connects to: Base closures have no significant or lasting regional economic impact; Base closures rarely cause the catastrophic economic damage communities fear — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 925; Bases occupying land represent an economic loss rather than gain
• QUESTION: If base closures consistently help local economies, why do communities and politicians resist them so fiercely? What interest groups drive the resistance?
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 929

Broader Connections

• Base closures have no significant or lasting regional economic impact #corroborates (0.85)
• Base closures rarely cause the catastrophic economic damage communities fear #corroborates (0.80) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 925
• Bases occupying land represent an economic loss rather than gain #expands (0.45)