Stimulus Adds 640,000 Jobs…Not so Fast
It has been widely claimed that the economic stimulus package that was launched early in President Obama’s administration has been responsible for saving or creating 640,000 jobs. The problem, however, is that the data supporting this claim are flawed, placing such claims squarely in the “statistics” category of the “lies, damned lies and statistics” triumvirate.
Earl Devaney, whose agency actually collected and released data on the stimulus’ affect on job creation and “savings,” noted that the reports are rife with errors. While questioned by Congress, Devaney went so far as to say that the White House should have acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the data.
The news is bad for the White House and for those actually losing jobs right now, as there is little known correlation between current deficit spending and job creation. It may be that many jobs have, in fact, been created or saved, but at present, there’s no way to determine for certain.
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