The U.S. Tries To Get Into The Infrastructure Race
Due to President Biden’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, passed with bipartisan support in 2021, it is making a mark as money begins to flow and roads get upgraded.
According to Bloomberg, there’s a hitch. Planners need to navigate demands to redress historical wrongs given the original motorway destroyed neighborhoods in the 1950s. And there are other concerns around the environmental impact and the need to use US-made construction materials.
the overall infrastructure investment being rolled out in the US also remains a long way from the amount invested in trading rivals such as China.
Still, with the money now flowing to projects around the country economists say there will be long-term productivity dividends from the investment. Construction and repair work will continue to drive employment and growth in the near term and the projects will then leave a longer legacy as transportation of goods and other commutes are sped up.
Which is why analysts are seizing on the positives.
“This is a drop of the bucket in terms of how we need to update infrastructure, very broadly defined,” said Heidi Crebo-Rediker of the Council for Foreign Relations, whose expertise includes infrastructure and US economic competitiveness. “But I also can’t overstate how much of an impact this will have over time in the US.”
