Report: A Million Jobs Saved With Auto Loans

A report out Wednesday paints a grim picture if the auto companies had been allowed to fail. According to the Center for Automotive Research, the govrrnment bailout of the U.S. auto industry saved a million jobs.

The same report estimates it also saved nearly a $100 billion in personal income. Kristin Dziczek, one of the researchers, says taxpayers will get good return on their money.

"Auto has very high employment multipliers, it also has one of the highest productivity of any industry in the country. So, if you want to retain or grow jobs, you'd want to spend your money where you will get the most other job impacts," Dziczek told WWJ.

The Ann Arbor based non-profit research group says, not only did the loans save a million  jobs, but it also saved the federal government nearly $30 billion.

One of the researchers on the report, Dziczek says if the companies had gone down, the effects would have been devastating to southeast Michigan. 

"You might have seen less impact on the coasts or in the South or out West, but this would have been a neutron bomb on Detroit." Dziczek added, for every job in the auto industry, there are another seven or eight  jobs that depend on it.

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