Is your state at risk? These 15 states face huge job losses if the IRA is repealed

The repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would wipe out thousands of US jobs, especially in the booming EV and battery manufacturing sectors, according to a report from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

IRA job creation is at stake

Since the IRA’s passage in 2022, the ICCT writes that automakers and battery manufacturers have committed around $125 billion to US-based projects, creating hundreds of thousands of American jobs. (The BlueGreen Alliance’s EV Jobs Hub puts announced EV investment even higher, at $212.5 billion.)

The ICCT’s new study, “How the Inflation Reduction Act is driving US job growth across the electric vehicle industry,” projects that the IRA would drive a net creation of more than 118,000 new direct jobs across the US EV, battery, and charging industries from 2026 to 2030. 

However, if key provisions of the IRA are rolled back, up to 130,000 direct manufacturing jobs would be lost by 2030. An IRA repeal would cause direct job losses of about 30,600 in vehicle production, 85,000 in battery manufacturing, and 14,200 in charging infrastructure.

Moreover, another 310,000 indirectly connected jobs could vanish by 2030. Stephanie Searle, chief program officer at ICCT, said, “These job losses would cascade throughout the economy, affecting not just autoworkers but also employees in mineral processing, retail, hospitality, and others dependent on a strong manufacturing base.”

According to ICCT’s analysis, states that have become hubs for EV and battery production – like Michigan, Texas, and Tennessee – face the most significant losses. Michigan alone can lose nearly 16,000 jobs, with Texas and Tennessee potentially shedding around 13,000 jobs. The ripple effects would extend beyond factories, impacting retail, hospitality, and mineral processing businesses.

This alarming outlook comes as US policymakers plan to impose a new 25% tariff on imported vehicles to bring manufacturing jobs back home. However, ICCT’s study demonstrates that Joe Biden’s signature policy has already achieved a domestic manufacturing boom and job creation.

“Most of the job losses associated with IRA repeal are in the Midwest and southern states, where significant EV and battery investments have been announced,” noted Peter Slowik, co-author of the report. “The 15 states where we project the greatest number of jobs at risk are Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, Nevada, California, Kentucky, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Arizona, New York, and Alabama.”

Electrek’s Take

The current administration claims to want to create domestic manufacturing and jobs. It just wants to do it with the stick (tariffs) instead of the carrot (IRA tax credits). The thing is, the carrot is already working. Investors have already said they will pull out without incentives. The stick is going to beat the EV and battery industry to death, and some states are going to suffer a lot more than others. The irony is, some of those states are the biggest supporters of the Trump administration’s policies.

Read more: Republican districts lose billions as clean energy cancellations surge

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