Obama Job Creation Numbers Disputed

October 31. 2009

CBS News, the Wall Street Journal, Politico and a number of other news sources are refuting the White House’s job creation numbers as grossly inaccurate and overstated. The fact of the matter is the U.S. economy is still in very bad shape and sugarcoating the problem is not going to solve it.

$160,000 Per Stimulus Job? White House Calls That 'Calculator Abuse'

October 30, 2009 7:12 PM - Posting its results late this afternoon at Recovery.gov, the White House claimed 640,329 jobs have been created or saved because of the $159 billion in stimulus funds allocated as of Sept. 30.

Officials acknowledged the numbers were not exact, saying that states and localities that reported the numbers have made mistakes...

Brian Schmidt, director of planning and programming for the commission said that his staff originally reported to the Obama administration that the stimulus money saved 250 jobs. Then, realizing they had mistakenly double credited, they later changed that to 125 jobs. Tuesday, they updated it again to 74 jobs...

So let's see. Assuming their number is right -- 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?

Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that "calculator abuse."

He said the cost per job was actually $92,000 -- but acknowledged that estimate is for the whole stimulus package as of the end of 2010...

http://blogs.abcnews.com

‘Jobs Created or Saved’ Is White House Fantasy: Caroline Baum

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- ...But the government has no money of its own to spend; only what it borrows or confiscates from us via taxation. Oops.

“Government job creation is an oxymoron,” said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business. It is only by depriving the private sector of funds that government can hire or subsidize hiring.

That’s why “jobs created or saved” is such pure fiction. It ignores what’s unseen, as our old friend Frederic Bastiat explained so eloquently 160 years ago in an essay...

Fiction Lags Reality...

Only 30,383 jobs were created or saved by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Recovery.gov, the government’s once-transparent Web site that has become a complex blur of numbers, graphs and pie charts. These are only the jobs reported by federal contract recipients. The Obama administration will report the larger universe of ARRA-related jobs on Oct. 30...

http://www.bloomberg.com

Consumers Aren't Buying Stimulus Jobs "Success"

I'm getting sick and tired of everyone talking about how much worse shape we would be in, but for (fill in the blank: TARP, stimulus, auto bail outs...) Even if it's true, it doesn't make anyone feel better. That's what I keep thinking when Obama Administration officials sound like cheerleaders claiming victory over job creation that occurred as a result of the $787 billion stimulus...

http://www.cbsnews.com

Stimulus Jobs Check: Are They for Real?

Oct. 30, 2009 - Where are all the jobs the White House is talking about? California got $18.5 billion in stimulus money, producing more than 110,000 jobs. Illinois got nearly $6.5 billion, and turned that into more than 24,000 jobs. CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy brings us the story from California, and CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports from Illinois.

At Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, classrooms and budgets are tight despite the influx of stimulus dollars.

California received $7 billion for education. The government says that created or saved 62,000 jobs. But the teacher's union says California also made $6 billion in cuts to education resulting in 20,000 jobs lost. Friday, California's governor said that number could have been much worse...

http://www.cbsnews.com

Flat incomes, weak consumer spending raise concern

MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – Fri Oct 30, 4:42 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Flat incomes suggest more weakness ahead in consumer spending, reinforcing concerns about a ho-hum holiday shopping season and a sluggish economic recovery.

"This recovery is going to be very weak. Consumers are in no position or mood to spend. Their wages are down and they can't get credit," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University's Smith School of Business...

http://news.yahoo.com