Via Naked Capitalism:

[Pollin and Garrett-Peltier, t]he authors [of "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities," republished by The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2009] compare the effects of a $1 billion military investment military and the same investment in clean energy, health care, education, or individual tax cuts. They show that non-military investments create a much larger number of jobs across all pay ranges. With a large share of the federal budget at stake, Pollin and Garrett-Peltier make a strong case that non-military spending priorities can create significantly greater opportunities for decent employment throughout the U.S. economy than spending the same amount of funds with the military.

Now, somebody should do the same kind of study for the prison-industrial complex, now that the military-industrial complex has been dealt with.