The Cost and Benefit of War

July 30, 2025

Presenter: Al Mytty, USA, World Beyond War:

Spending money on the military is not an efficient way to create jobs. The research shows that 35% more jobs would be created if we allowed taxpayers to spend the money themselves. 50% more jobs would be created if that money were spent on clean energy. 54% more jobs would be created by spending the money on health care, and 138% more jobs would be created by spending the money on education rather than the military.

Here’s the documentation:

THE U.S. EMPLOYMENT EFFECTS OF MILITARY AND DOMESTIC SPENDING PRIORITIES: 2011 UPDATE

Robert Pollin & Heidi Garrett-Peltier

Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

December 2011

Input-output analytic framework first developed in the 1930s by Nobel Laureate economist Wassily Leontief

	Direct Jobs	Indirect Jobs	Direct + Indirect Jobs	Induced Jobs	Total Job Creation	Job Creation Relative to Defense Spending
Military	6,800	1,800	8,600	2,600	11,200
Tax cuts for personal consumption	7,300	3,500	10,800	4,300	15,100	+35%
Clean energy	7,900	4,100	12,000	4,800	16,800	+50%
Health care	8,400	3,900	12,300	4,900	17,200	+54%
Education	15,300	3,800	19,100	7,600	26,700	+138%

www.peri.umass.edu/publication/item/449-the-u-s-employment-effects-of-military-and-domestic-spending-priorities-2011-update

Another point I want to make was that it is far more effective to spend tax dollars on humanitarian aid.

For less than 6% of what the U.S. spent on war and militarism, 91 million lives were saved. But the $8 TRILLION spent on war killed more 4.5 million people.

Here’s the detail:

A recent study estimates that USAID-supported programs saved approximately 91 million lives between 2001 and 2021. The study, published in The Lancet, focused on low- and middle-income countries. Researchers also projected that continued funding cuts to USAID could lead to over 14 million additional preventable deaths by 2030.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext

The U.S. spent about $460 billion on USAID funding over the 20 years of 2001-2021. But the U.S. spent $8 trillion on war and militarism. The U.S. killed 4.5-4.7 million people over that time-period.

I based the $460 billion on the Wikipedia report below that the US had spent an average of $23 billion per year during 2001-2021.

Link 2 wikipedia United States Agency for International Development

So, for less than 6% of what we spent on war and militarism, we saved 91 million people. But the $8 TRILLION killed more 4.5 million.

Link 3 us spending on war 2001-2021 cost of war

$8 trillion spent on war

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/BudgetaryCosts

The estimate of 4.5-4.7 million deaths from war come from this:

Link 4 direct and indirect deaths from global war on terror

More specific information is from the Brown University Cost of War project:

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2023/IndirectDeaths

Factsheet Ends