Your Government at Work—
A new CBO report claims that the Obama-Pelosi $787 billion Stimulus (Porkulus) Bill saved or created possibly 1.1 million jobs give or take 500,000 jobs either way.
It’s an exact science, you know.
The US unemployment spiked from 7.6% to 10.2% this year under Obama… the highest rate in 26 years.
Chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics– via Sweetness and Light
Obama promised his stimulus plan would create 3.7 million new jobs.
Instead America has lost 3.6 million jobs.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Congressional Budget Office late Monday said it estimates that the federal stimulus package sustained between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs in the third quarter, and raised gross domestic product by 1.2 to 3.2 percentage points higher than it would have been without the program.
The CBO said the figures were estimates made “using evidence about how previous similar policies have affected the economy and various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy.”
CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, in a blog post, said stimulus recipients have reported that about 640,000 jobs “were created or retained” with stimulus funding through Sept. 30. “However, such reports do not provide a comprehensive estimate of the law’s impact on employment in the United States. That impact may be higher or lower than the reported number for several reasons (in addition to any issues about the quality of the data in the reports),” Mr. Elmendorf wrote. The CBO is required to comment on the figures released by stimulus recipients.
The White House has recently touted the figure of 640,000 jobs tied to stimulus spending, based on the reports from grant recipients, as evidence that the package is effective. But questions about the accuracy of the reports underpinning that figure have prompted criticism by members of Congress from both parties. Republicans have said the $787 billion package of tax cuts and spending hasn’t stopped unemployment from rising to 10.2%. Some Democrats have expressed frustration with the apparent inaccuracies in the job count.