Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Monday, December 06, 2010

Net Job Impact Of Stimulus: Zero.

A study by Daniel J. Wilson of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, suggests that the net job creation from the $814 billion stimulus bill passed in February, 2009, was zero by August 2010.

In the first year,  the stimulus "saved or created" 2 million jobs (not 4 million as repeatedly claimed by the Administration), but this number proved to be short lived, paying for temporary jobs, at a very high cost of $400,000 per job "saved or created."

By August, 2010, the impact of the stimulus on net job creation had disappeared.

This is an astounding result, which destroys the Paul Krugman argument that the economy would be so much better right now, if only Congress had approved much more spending in February 2009.  Double the initial spending,  double the number of temporary jobs, with likely the same net result by this point in time, or a trivial number of "permanent  jobs created . 

In fact, the unemployment rate is at a substantially higher percentage rate today at 9.8% than when the stimulus bill was passed.

More here

No comments: