Study Overestimates Job Creation Through Broadband Investment

A co-author of a widely cited forecast that nearly 300,000 U.S. jobs would be created for every percentage point rise in high-speed Internet use said on Friday these and similar estimates are "a gross overestimate."

"There is a great deal of overstatement in most of these studies," said Robert Crandall, a Brookings Institution economist and co-author of the frequently-cited paper with that estimate.

U.S. lawmakers are proposing grants between $6 billion to $9 billion and tax credits to encourage investment in high-speed Internet, as part of an economic stimulus plan winding its way through Congress costing up to $900 billion.

The 300,000 jobs estimate has been used in newspapers and cited by other publications advocating investment in high-speed Internet, or broadband.

Study Overestimates Job Creation Through Broadband Investment