Stimulus Jobs--Deceptive Reports & Disputed Facts

"If we see money being misspent, we're going to put a stop to it, and we will call it out and we will publicize it." 

                                                                               -President Barack Obama, March 12, 2009

On October 30, 2009, the White House released a report claiming that $214.5 billion awarded in federal contracts, tax benefits, grants, and loans from the trillion dollar "stimulus" have "saved or created" 640,329 jobs.   In reality, the U.S. economy has lost nearly 3 million jobs since February when the stimulus legislation was passed.  Unemployment, which the President promised would stay below eight percent if the stimulus became law, has reached 10.2 percent, a 26-year high.   The Administration's report is overstated, unverifiable, and uses unreliable practices to overstate the impact of the Democrats' stimulus bill.

Jobs "Saved":  The Administration has no reliable way to measure jobs they claim to have "saved."   The White House's numbers rely heavily on vague claims by recipients of jobs "saved" that are based on confusing reporting requirements and susceptible to Administration spin.  Even with these reports, the White House cannot verify that these employees would have lost their jobs otherwise.  As Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) said when addressing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, March 4, 2009, "You created a situation where you cannot be wrong... If the economy loses two million jobs over the next few years, you can say yes, but it would've lost 5.5 million jobs.  If we create a million jobs, you can say, well, it would have lost 2.5 million jobs.  You've given yourself complete leverage where you cannot be wrong, because you can take any scenario and make yourself look correct."

"Saving" Existing Jobs:  The stimulus act has also failed to create long-term, private-sector jobs.  Reports now show that many of the jobs the White House is claiming were saved were never in jeopardy.  The following is only an abbreviated list of some examples of the Administration's misleading reports:

• More than half of the jobs the White House claims to have "created or saved"-325,000 of 640,329-were education jobs that already existed.
• An Associated Press (AP) review of the full recipient report found that more than 250 local agencies reported saving jobs when the money was actually used to give raises to existing employees.
• The Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services claimed that recovery funds "saved" 14,506 jobs, when in actuality the money went to give raises to 9,300 existing employees.   In response, HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said, "If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job."
• In Florida, a child care center reported saving 129 jobs with stimulus funds, but the money was used to give current employees raises.
• After reporting that stimulus funding had saved 20,000 teaching jobs, California's director of fiscal policy for the State's Department of Education admitted that the Administration's reporting process could not precisely count the jobs retained, saying, "It was intended to be a count.  The way it was done, I think it's going to end up being an estimate."
•  In Missouri, a commercial diving company reported saving seven and a half jobs after completing a stimulus-funded project to remove a submerged turbine blade but later reported that none of the employees were in any danger of losing their jobs.
• In Ohio, the Columbus school district admitted that they were told by the State Department of Education to report jobs that wouldn't have been lost anyway as being saved by stimulus money.  "I know we explained to (the Ohio Department of Education) what we were doing, and they told us what categories to use...  They (the jobs) weren't ‘created,' obviously, so our only other choice was ‘saved,'" said a school official.

Over-Reporting:  Every day since the White House unveiled its stimulus jobs report, stories of over-reporting of the impact of the stimulus have piled up.  Last week, the AP reported that the White House's original claims after the first round of recipient reports were over exaggerated by thousands of jobs.   The White House attempted to dismiss the AP story as "misleading" and said that new data "are far sharper than the initial ones you saw two weeks ago."  Still, the reported incidents of errors and fraudulent reporting continue to mount as the press digs deeper into the claims. 

• Colorado Head Start reported that 292 jobs were created when the actual number was three.
•  450 created jobs were reported for a project to fix a fence in a town of fewer than 900 people in Texas.  In reality, six people were temporarily hired to do the job.
• 205 jobs were reportedly created by the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in Salem, Oregon, while the funds were actually used to give pay raises.  When asked about the 205 jobs, the organization's executive director told the Wall Street Journal, "Holy moly, that's not right."
• In North Chicago, a school district that employs 290 teachers was credited with saving 473 jobs.   When asked about the data, the district's superintendent said, "That other number, I don't know where that came from."
• Of the 19,752 created jobs in Texas, 5,100 were part-time summer youth jobs.
• The Plymouth, Connecticut Police Department, which has 22 employees, reported that it has created or saved 108 jobs with a $15,355 grant for computers.
• In Arkansas, 50 jobs were reported from $1,047 in recovery funds for the purchase of a riding lawnmower for the Fayetteville National Cemetery.

Broken Promises:  While pushing for the "stimulus," President Obama said, "More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector.  They're not going to be make-work jobs, but jobs doing the work that America desperately needs done: jobs rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, repairing our dangerously deficient dams and levees."   However, more than half of all the reported jobs were public sector jobs that already existed, while manufacturing and construction jobs represented only 12 percent of the already questionable levels reported by the Administration.  To make the situation worse, the AP reported on November 2, 2009, that "Many communities hit hardest by job losses, those built around dying factories and mills, have been slowest to see relief from President Barack Obama's stimulus plan."