The report, released Tuesday by George Mason University and commissioned by the Aerospace Industries Association, a group that lobbies for many companies in the defense industry, estimates that 1.09 million private-sector and federal jobs connected with the Department of Defense would be lost, and nearly as many nondefense jobs. The report, titled "The Economic Impact of the Budget Control Act of 2011 on DOD and Non-DOD Agencies," examines the ripple effect from the potential cuts, known as sequestration, that resulted from a congressional deal struck last fall during negotiations on the current budget deal.
Those result of those negotiations was that Congress and the president were unable to agree on a deficit-reduction plan. If there is no agreement by January 2013, the Pentagon and other federal agencies would be forced to cut spending by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. The Department of Defense would receive most of the cuts, $492 billion, while the other federal offices would share the remainder of the cuts, totaling $708 billion.
The defense-sector job loss numbers are up slightly from a similar report the AIA released last October, which looked only at a limited number of accounts that would hit the defense industry in reaching a total of 1.06 million lost jobs. The latest report looks at the effect of sequestration on all accounts that would affect the defense industry. The October report did not look at the effect on other federal agencies. "This report shows that sequestration is not just a defense problem, it's an American problem," said AIA President and CEO Marion C. Blakey. "Unless our leaders in Washington take action, massive cuts have the potential to impact everyone from the defense worker to teachers, health care professionals, government employees and beyond."
According to the new report:
- 1,090,359 jobs across the defense sector would be lost;
- 107,220 of those jobs would be in the federal sector;
- 1,047,349 jobs would disappear related to the budget cuts for other federal agencies
- More than half of those nondefense jobs - 510,229 - would be federal employees.
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