Watchdog Has Doubts About Stimulus Jobs Reported
I’d like to rewind for a second. In that last post on the proposed “Cash for Caulkers” stimulus program, the New York Times piece said:
The rest of the stimulus has created a lot of jobs — 700,000 to 1.5 million, according to economists’ estimates.
Now, I’m hearing there were problems with tabulating those stimulus job numbers, according to the Associated Press this afternoon. They’re reporting:
The government watchdog overseeing economic stimulus spending says the White House was too quick to take credit for saving or creating 640,000 jobs.
The White House trumpeted job figures released last month, saying they proved the administration is on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
But Earl Devaney, whose agency collected and released the data, said Thursday there are too many errors to know how many jobs have been created. Under questioning on Capitol Hill, he agreed the White House should have acknowledged the doubt surrounding the numbers.
He said the downside of the unprecedented transparency is embarrassment, and there’s enough embarrassment over the accounting problems to go around.
“…the White House should have acknowledged the doubt surrounding the numbers.”
So much for “unprecedented transparency.”
Source:
“Stimulus watchdog: Job creation data flawed”
Associated Press, November 19, 2009
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