US to spend $4 bn to create 'green' jobs

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will spend some of $4 billion in economic stimulus money that was budgeted to renovate public housing on creating so-called "green jobs" by making the dwellings more energy efficient, a cabinet secretary planned to announce yesterday.

Obama has pushed greening the economy - reducing dependence on foreign energy sources, developing domestic alternatives and easing the effects of climate change - as a way to help pull the economy out of its worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Green jobs, broadly defined as work that helps the environment, pay up to 20 percent more than other jobs, are more likely to be union jobs and are more likely to be held by men, but less so by minorities and people who live in cities, according to a report Obama's Middle Class Task Force issued in February. These jobs also are ones that cannot be easily transferred overseas.