Job Statistics
Recent Federal Highway Administration data indicate that every $1 billion of highway construction supports over 27,800 jobs (this does not include the traditional state match). This includes 9,537 on-site construction jobs and 4,324 jobs in industries that either directly or indirectly supply materials and services used in highway construction. When those employed at the construction site or in supplier industries spend their incomes, another 13,962 jobs are created.
The key number is 27,800 (which we have been rounding to 28,000). That is the number of jobs sustained by each billion dollars of transportation investment in the federal stimulus bill, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Customarily, each billion dollars in federal highway investment sustains about 35,000 jobs. However, normally the state must provide a 20 percent match to the funding that the federal government invests for a project. The stimulus (ARRA) dollars do not require a state match, so the jobs number is 20 percent less (28,000 instead of 35,000).