Wall Street Journal: ‘CBO: 600,000 to 1.6 Million Employed by Stimulus’
Wall Street Journal: ‘CBO: 600,000 to 1.6 Million Employed by Stimulus’
The Republican Party of NO Stood Shoulder-to-Shoulder Against the President’s Economic Recovery Plan and Have Rooted for Its Failure Every Day Since
New Web Video: If Republicans Had Had Their Way, Up to 1.6 Million Americans Would Be Without Jobs Today
Click Here to Watch “Eating Crow”
Washington D.C. – Americans United for Change released a new web video today called “Eating Crow” on the heels of new data from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimating that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved or created as many as 1.6 million jobs and increased the Gross Domestic Product between 1.2 percent and 3.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009 alone.
Tom McMahon, Acting Executive Director, Americans United for Change: “After enabling 8 years of disastrous economic policies that left our nation on the brink of depression, Congressional Republicans not only shrugged off any responsibility but stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to the President’s plan to get the economy moving again. And they have cynically rooted for the President’s jobs and economic recovery plan to fail every day since. It’s now clear that if the Party of NO would have had their way, up to 1.6 million American people would be out of work today. When will Congressional Republicans stop rooting for failure and start working with the President and the Democratic Leadership in Congress to continue moving the economy in the right direction?”
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125964003843970851.html
CBO: 600,000 to 1.6 Million Employed by Stimulus
Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 30, 2009, 11:08 P.M. ET
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.
The CBO in March projected that the stimulus would result in 600,000 to 1.5 million more jobs than would have existed without the spending. In his blog post, Mr. Elmendorf says the CBO's latest estimates reflect a finding that the impact of the package's tax cuts have been about $10 billion larger than originally projected, while the impact on federal spending because of the legislation "has turned out to be slightly smaller than CBO initially estimated."
"Economic output and employment in the spring and summer of 2009 were lower than CBO had projected at the beginning of the year. But in CBO's judgment, that outcome reflects greater-than-projected weakness in the underlying economy rather than lower-than-expected effects" of the stimulus, according to Mr. Elmendorf's blog post.
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http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/1209/cbo_delivers_the_goods_b6e5bb16-7d2a-4896-82bc-2a475f251286.html
CBO delivers the goods
Report: At least 600K jobs created
By DIANNA HEITZ | 12/01/09 10:28 AM
A road sign reading 'Putting America to Work' and 'Project Funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act' is seen along Route 120 in Waukegan, Ill., in this June
Between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs were created or saved through September as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.
The data, released Monday, says the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been, had the $787 billion stimulus package not passed in February. Also, the stimulus lowered the unemployment by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, according to the report.
The new figures are slightly higher than CBO’s March estimates that between 600,000 and 1.5 million jobs were saved or created by the third quarter of this year, the report said.
CBO also estimates that the stimulus upped federal spending by $100 billion while cutting tax revenue by $90 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The White House will play host to a jobs summit on Dec. 3, which will seek new ways to combat unemployment, which has ballooned to more than 10 percent – the highest point nationwide since 1983.