Jobs have been lost across Alaska’s economy due to the budget crisis caused by our broken oil tax system. Teachers, university staff, police, and firefighters have all lost their jobs through direct cuts and these cuts forced Alaska into an economic recession last year- long before the pandemic. Many more Alaskans have lost their jobs indirectly as critical services like the Alaska Marine Highway have been gutted and Alaska has not been able to fund a basic construction (capital) budget in years.
While Big Oil promised that our oil tax system would create jobs, it has completely failed. Oil and gas jobs have been cut over 30% – from 14500 to 9880. We gave up billions of dollars for that promise – billions that went out of state. We are better off keeping those billions of dollars in the state and supporting our economy here with more jobs.