Some 600,000 Jobs Tied to Obama Stimulus Plan in 4Q

[tekisui]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package saved or created nearly 600,000 jobs in the final three months of 2009, the White House said in a report likely to intensify debate over a new jobs bill.

With unemployment at a 26-year high of 10 percent, Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are eager to boost job growth and will use the report on the federal website www.recovery.gov to gauge the impact of the $787 billion stimulus plan passed last year.

Democrats want to build support for new jobs legislation, including a package Senate Democrats expect to unveil in the coming week.

The House of Representatives recently passed a jobs bill modeled after the package of direct spending and tax breaks that was meant to combat the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The new report, posted late on Saturday, showed 599,108 stimulus-related jobs reported by recipients of funding between October 1 and December 31, 2009.

California, one of the states that has lost the most jobs in the recession, posted 71,015 stimulus-related jobs for the fourth quarter. Michigan, which consistently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, listed 20,140 such jobs.

But the report's accuracy came under immediate attack.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a private research group, and others said it had not counted jobs indirectly created by spending on extra unemployment benefits, increased Medicaid reimbursements and tax cuts.

more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60U1KH20100131

[babylonsister]

1. So much for the rethug mantra that the stim didn't work. Rec'd. nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. Correct. Any claim the stimulus didn't decrease unemployment is absurd

The pug claim that the stimulus could have possibly increased unemployment is flat-earth stuff.

On can argue a lot of things about the stimulus, but at the very least it was responsible ending the recession (in technical terms) a quarter early and restraining the unemployment rate somewhat.

[frazzled]

3. Our current (and hopefully next) governor Pat Quinn just wrote me to say ...

On Friday, our application for high speed rail funding from the stimulus came through. Illinois is going to get $1.2 billion in federal money, and 6,000 new jobs.

This is in addition to the 1200 new jobs (and 400 million in investment) from the new Ford Plant and as-yet-unanalyzed (by me) claim that "Exelon announced that it's joining the FutureGen Alliance, which could bring over 2,600 jobs and $1 billion in sustainable energy investments to Illinois' heartland."

That's almost 10K more jobs just announced in the last few days here. Are things looking up? I hope so.

Illinoisans: Please vote for Pat Quinn in the Democratic primary this Tuesday!