Stimulus Job Numbers Reported by Recovery.gov May Be Inaccurate

The slogan prominently displayed across the recovery.gov website is “Track the Money”. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done according to recent reports from ABC News indicating that a close examination of the numbers simply isn’t adding up.

The Obama administration has claimed that stimulus money has created or saved over 1 million new jobs. But with a U.S. national unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, it seems as though some people just weren’t buying it. In the ABC News report, reporter Johnathan Karl dug deep into the data available on recovery.gov and the results were surprising to say the least. Among the inconsistencies are the following: • Reports of jobs created in non-existent districts from virtually every U.S. state. • Agencies that simply used the stimulus money to provide raises for their employees and counting those as saved jobs. • Stimulus money that was used by agencies however no jobs were created. This is the case in Statesboro, GA where a nursing home used $243,500 of stimulus money to renovate its facilities yet reported that no jobs were created. • Erroneous reporting of new jobs by agencies that now admit the jobs that have not even begun yet. Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Recovery Board claims that all of the discrepancies are due to human errors in the reporting of the data. Recovery.gov, which cost $18 million to develop, was created by the Obama administration to track the number of jobs that were saved or created using the $787 billion in stimulus funds. The idea, as stated on the website, was to provide greater accountability and transparency in the spending of stimulus dollars. No one has claimed wrongdoing in the numbers. However the huge number of mounting inaccuracies have many in an uproar and a more complete examination and possible revision of the numbers is expected to be released soon.