Military spending creates fewer than half the jobs of equivalent education investment.

Evidence

Military spending creates fewer jobs per billion dollars expended than the same billion dollars invested in education, health care, or energy efficiency—less than half as many jobs as investing in schools, for example. Even worse, while military spending provides direct benefits to military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and KBR, these investments don’t boost long-run economic productivity the way infrastructure investments do. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 652

Categorization

• XREF: Job-creation multipliers compare directly with chapters’ opportunity-cost argument; useful counter to ‘bases create local jobs’ rhetoric.