Jobs, jobs, jobs

The 49er's proposal claims that 830 jobs will be created by the stadium.

Upon closer scrutiny, KMA, the City's consultants, found that 40% of these jobs already exist today. They are jobs at the 49ers' Training Center on Tasman Drive. That means we're really only gaining 498 jobs. Oops.

KMA then went on to note that, on average, Santa Clara residents hold only 13% of the jobs located in the City. This means we're creating only 65 jobs for our city. The rest of the jobs will benefit our neighbors in San Jose, Sunnyvale, etc. Nothing wrong with that, except Santa Clara is footing the whole bill, and Santa Clara's neighbors will be getting the majority of the jobs. Ooops number 2.

Then there's the pay scale. The 49ers claim the 830 jobs will pay a total of $38 million. But wait! KMA pointed out that $21 million of this go to the 332 people already employed at the training center. The remaining $17 million will go to the 498 new jobs. This works out to an average of $34,137/year for these new jobs. Compare this to the median household income of $69,466 ⁽¹⁾, and median home prices ranging up to $752,000 ⁽²⁾. Oooops number 3.

So we're going to give the 49ers a subsidy of $297M to create 65 jobs. That's nearly $5 million to create each job! And these jobs pay far less than what it costs to live here. The mother of all "Ooopses?" You decide.

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⁽¹⁾ 8-year old census data; the 2007 median income is higher.

⁽²⁾ San Jose Mercury News, Saturday, June 9, 2007, Real Estate section, page 5.