Dollar-for-dollar, money spent on domestic spending priorities such as healthcare, clean energy, and education creates a greater number of jobs than defence spending, according to a study done by the University of Massachusetts’ Political Economy Research Institute.

Researchers Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier arrived at this conclusion by projecting the number of direct, indirect, and induced jobs that $1 billion provided to each sector would create. What they found was that relative to defence spending, clean energy and health care spending each created 50-55% more jobs and spending on education created almost 140% more jobs.  Even tax cuts for the purpose of consumption were found to be capable of creating 35% more jobs than military spending.

Despite military spending having above average compensation for the fewer jobs it did create (largely due to the increased benefits over the private sector), the study concluded that spending on domestic priorities provides far and away the better chance of decent employment across all pay ranges.

The study looked at the effects of spending choices in the U.S. economy, but Canada and other countries would undoubtedly experience similar results.