Health Care

Jobs FAIL

More good news out of Washington today!

The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm
payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in con-
struction, manufacturing, and retail trade. (BLS)

That's awesome! Just what we were promised by the President when he signed the Stimulus bill. Let's take a look at what the Obama administration promised us October would look like with the stimulus (DARK BLUE LINE):



Whoops! What happened here? Did the $780 Billion Stimulus have no effect on the economy? Let's see what Obama has to say about that:

Nearly 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the government said Friday, and the White House declared the nation on track to meet the president's goal of 3.5 million by the end of next year.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were released, showing 640,329 positions credited to the stimulus, according to the independent federal board monitoring the program's progress. (Yahoo!)

That sounds good. But how did the Obama administration figure out how many jobs were "created or saved"?:

- A review of the latest stimulus reports - which the White House promised would undergo extensive reviews to ensure accuracy - found that more than two-thirds of 14,506 jobs credited to the recovery act by Head Start programs involved pay increases. (Boston Globe)

- An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.

The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.

The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced. (AP)

- More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers.

Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers.

"That other number, I don't know where that came from," said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187. (Chicago Tribune)

- The federal government sent Bob Bray $26,174 in stimulus aid to fix a fence and replace the roofs on public apartments in Blooming Grove, Texas, a town of fewer than 900 people outside Dallas. He hired five roofers and an inspector to do the job.

But the number of jobs he reported to the government looked very different — 450 jobs.

"Oh, no," said Bray, who runs the local public housing authority part-time with his wife, Linda, when asked about the discrepancy. He said that he told the government that he had created six jobs but that a federal official told him that wasn't right. So he reported the number of hours the roofers worked instead. The Department of Housing and Urban Development caught the mistake, but he couldn't fix it before the jobs figures were published. "The money was great, but the reports are really confusing," he said. "I've been fighting with it for over a month and a half." (USA Today)

Gosh, It looks like there's been a lot of "rounding up" going on in the Obama administration. Sometimes you have to do that so that numbers aren't too confusing. Math is hard. :/

Maybe this graph will clear things up:

9.7

The chart below shows the actual unemployment rate in red, and the blue lines represent the White House projections for the unemployment rate with and without the $787 billion stimulus package that was passed earlier this year.

Whoops!

April Fool's!

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