As of early Thursday, on its recovery.org Web site, the government was still citing 30,383 as the actual number of jobs linked so far to stimulus spending, despite the mistakes the White House has now acknowledged and said were being corrected.

----------------

Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands

WASHINGTON — An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports.

The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts.

The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.

For example:

Note: A company working with the Federal Communications Commission reported that stimulus money paid for 4,231 jobs, when about 1,000 were produced.

Note: A Georgia community college reported creating 280 jobs with recovery money, but none was created from stimulus spending.

Note:A Florida child care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs but used the money on raises for existing employees.

There's no evidence the White House sought to inflate job numbers in the report. But administration officials seized on the 30,000 figure as evidence that the stimulus program was on its way toward fulfilling the president's promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

The reporting problem could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is expected to show hundreds of thousands of jobs repairing public housing, building schools, repaving highways and keeping teachers on local payrolls.

The White House says it is aware there are problems. In an interview, Ed DeSeve, an Obama adviser helping to oversee the stimulus program, said agencies have been working with businesses that received the money to correct mistakes. Other errors discovered by the public also will be corrected, he said.

"If there's an error that was made, let's get it fixed," DeSeve said.

The White House released a statement early Thursday that it said laid out the "real facts" about how jobs were counted in the stimulus data distributed two weeks ago. It said that had been a test run of a small subset of data that had been subjected only to three days of reviews, that it had already corrected "virtually all" the mistakes identified by the AP and that the discovery of mistakes "does not provide a statistically significant indication of the quality of the full reporting that will come on Friday."

The data partially reviewed by the AP for errors included all the data presently available, representing all known federal contracts awarded to businesses under the stimulus program. The figures being released Friday include different categories of stimulus spending by state governments, housing authorities, nonprofit groups and other organizations.

As of early Thursday, on its recovery.org Web site, the government was still citing 30,383 as the actual number of jobs linked so far to stimulus spending, despite the mistakes the White House has now acknowledged and said were being corrected.

It's not clear just how far off the 30,000 claim was. The AP's review was not an exhaustive accounting of all 9,000 contracts, but homed in on the most obvious cases where there were indications of duplications or misinterpretations.

While the thousands of overstated jobs represent a tiny sliver of the overall economy, they represent a significant percentage of the initial employment count credited to the stimulus program.

Tom Gavin, a spokesman for the White House budget office, attributed the errors to officials as well as recipients having to conduct such reporting for the first time.

In fact, the AP review shows some businesses undercounted the number of jobs funded under the stimulus program by not reporting jobs saved.

Here are some of the findings:

Note: Colorado-based Teletech Government Solutions on a $28.3 million contract with the Federal Communications Commission for creation of a call center, reported creating 4,231 jobs, although 3,000 of those workers were paid for five weeks or less.

"We all felt it was an appropriate way to represent the data at the time" and the reporting error has been corrected, said company president Mariano Tan.

Note: The Toledo, Ohio-based Koring Group received two FCC contracts, again for call centers. It reported hiring 26 people for each contract, or a total of 52 jobs, but cited the same workers for both contracts. The jobs only lasted about two months.

The FCC spotted the problem. The company's owner, Steve Holland, acknowledged the actual job count is closer to five and blamed the problem on confusion about the reporting.

The AP's review identified nearly 600 contracts claiming stimulus money for more than 2,700 jobs that appear to have similar duplicated counts.

Note: Barbara Moore, executive director of the Child Care Association of Brevard County in Cocoa, Fla., reported that the $98,669 she received in stimulus money saved 129 jobs at her center, though the cash was used to give her 129 employees a 3.9 percent cost-of-living raise. She said she needed to boost their salaries because some workers had left "because we had not been able to give them a raise in four years."

Note: Officials at East Central Technical College in Douglas, Ga., said they now know they shouldn't have claimed 280 stimulus jobs linked to more than $200,000 to buy trucks and trailers for commercial driving instruction, and a modular classroom and bathroom for a health education program.

"It was an error on someone's part," said Mike Light, spokesman for the Technical College System of Georgia. The 280 were not jobs, but the number of students who would benefit, he said.

Note: The San Joaquin, Calif., Regional Rail Commission reported creating or saving 125 jobs as part of a stimulus project to lay railroad track. Because the project drew from two pools of money, the commission reported the jobs figure twice, bringing the total to 250 on the government report. Spokesman Thomas Reeves said the commission corrected the data Tuesday.

http://www.google.com/hostedne...Im6rIjDmAgAD9BKKBIG0

This message has been edited. Last edited by: witilinki,

A job is what you need to get.

A “colorful” article!

---------------------------

Now, first of all, stop and contemplate the farce that is going on here. We have lost 3 million jobs since Obama bluffed and pandered his generational theft act through Congress. And they are touting 30,000 jobs as a success? I mean, 30,000 jobs created or saved is a massive failure on its face. And then it turns out that even many of those 30,000 jobs are bogus.

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Obama Continues To Resort To Fabrication To Pimp His Porkulus

By Michael Eden

It would be nice if the Obama administration got its narrative straight. Christine Romer, the chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says that the stimulus pretty much had all the effect it’s going to have. And while she’s saying that, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is proclaiming that the stimulus was designed with a two-year horizon and that “half that effect is still ahead of us.” Maybe they could get together and cook their story.

It wouldn’t hurt if the White House got its basic facts straight, while they were at it.

From the AP, in an article entitled, “Stimulus Watch: Stimulus Jobs Overstated In Report”:

Now, first of all, stop and contemplate the farce that is going on here. We have lost 3 million jobs since Obama bluffed and pandered his generational theft act through Congress. And they are touting 30,000 jobs as a success? I mean, 30,000 jobs created or saved is a massive failure on its face. And then it turns out that even many of those 30,000 jobs are bogus.

Obama promised his Wreckovery Act would create 3 million new jobs. The fact that he now has to play games to create the illusion that he “saved” or created a minuscule 30 thousand jobs is a screaming testimony to what a failure Obama has truly been.

The White House, according to media reports, is blasting the Associated Press for exposing this new Obama administration fabrication. I guess they’re not a “legitimate news agency,” either.

The Obama administration has been pumping sunshine (a polite synonym for “lying”) practically since the day their porkulus generational theft act was passed back in February. That was when Obama officials falsely promised the country that they would be able to keep unemployment below 8% if we gave them their stimulus. Even liberals are increasingly acknowledging that Obama has been a total bust at job creation.

Obama now has a documented history of fallacious expectations and highly selective cherry-picking of “facts”. It is par for the course for a president who only knows how to campaign, rather than to lead or to actually solve problems.

And nothing has been more completely fraudulent that their repeated attempts to argue that their Wreckovery Act created jobs.

The reality is that the European leaders who predicted government stimulus would fail to improve the economy were right, and Obama was wrong. There is a clear correlation between stimulus money and unemployment, but it isn’t the kind of correlation Obama wanted: the more spending by government, the higher the unemployment rate.

We’re told that the economy grew by an annual rate of 3.5% last quarter, and that this signals the recession may be over. But there’s a little factoid that needs to be understood, namely:

Economists forecast the nation’s total output grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent between July and September, after contracting for a record four straight quarters. That growth has been fueled by a huge influx of government cash, including a temporary tax credit for first-time homeowners and a $1.25 trillion Federal Reserve program to keep mortgage rates low.

In other words, the GDP grew, my hind end. Rather, the government spent a ton of money, the result of which was to artificially pump up the economy. It’s the equivalent of borrowing a ton of money you don’t have to buy a car you can’t afford in order to impress your neighbors. Only it’s Obama instead of you, and it’s trillions of dollars rather than thousands.

As a result of this fraud, the administration can pump up a number. But the reality is very different. Consumer confidence “unexpectedly” dropped in October just as we’re entering the critical Holiday shopping season, meaning the American people aren’t falling for the ruse. And new home sales took an “unexpected” dump into the toilet to throw a bucketful of cold water into the face of anyone naive enough to buy the myth that we’re going to rise above our housing market woes.

As a result of too many partisan political shenanigans over too long a time, most Americans – by a solid 52% to 36% majority – believe that Obama has the country on the wrong track.

I would submit that a little more honesty, and a lot less bullpuckey, would go a long way.

http://startthinkingright.word...o-pimp-his-porkulus/

I did the math.

If it's overestimated by 5000:

30,000 - 5000 = 25,000
25,000/30,000 = 0.833 (approx.)
0.833 * 100 = 83.3%
100 - 83.3 = 16.7% of jobs don't exist.

I wouldn't worry.

quote:

Originally posted by Aimee the Great:
I did the math.

If it's overestimated by 5000:

30,000 - 5000 = 25,000
25,000/30,000 = 0.833 (approx.)
0.833 * 100 = 83.3%
100 - 83.3 = 16.7% of jobs don't exist.

I wouldn't worry.

What's this nonsense?

It said overestimated by 5000 jobs.

BamBam promised 3.5 million jobs. Do the math!

Where are those shovel ready jobs?

Honestly... to say not to worry is saying that you aren't affected by the loss of jobs in this country. There is a very serious problem and it's not getting any better at all. Check the percentage of people in Michigan who are out of work right now. It's not because they're lazy or they don't want to work. It's because their jobs are gone. In Massachusetts it's not much better. I've been told by people working in HR that when they advertise a job opening they get at least 50 resumes on the FIRST DAY they post it and more after. SO many people I know personally are out of work and there is nothing out there to be had. Please don't say "don't worry". Our country is on a road to poverty and it's not getting any better. The main problem I see is outsourcing. Yeah - maybe it's good to outsource a percentage of products so other undeveloped countries can do better. Not everything. Not at the expense of those who are doing ok already.

PHEW!

During the depression the government allocated re-training to people that were out of work. If this is happening, I sure don't see it. The adult ed courses where canned years ago by the school systems.

So the old jobs are gone. Companies hire ready made employees and everybody was so ready to get rid of the Unions that had apprenticeship programs.

Very unclear as to how we box our way out of that plastic bag.

Creating jobs should have been one of BamBam's TOP priorities.

And, to be telling people "the climbing national debt could drag the country into a "double-dip recession" (DUH! How prophetic!; like people don't already know that!), after printing money like there was no tomorrow is pathetic!

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Uncovering Obama's Stimulus Sham

November 18, 2009 10:15 AM ET | Peter Roff | Permanent Link | Print

By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

There were few economists who really believed, despite the promises that the money would go to shovel ready projects that could begin immediately once the funding came through, that the stimulus would really create any net jobs. But something needed to be done, they said, especially in light of the Obama administration forecast that, without it, unemployment would rise about 9 percent for the first time in several decades.

Well, in what must have come as a surprise to the White House, they got both: the stimulus and unemployment up over 9 percent for the first time since the Reagan recession of the early 1980s.

It was a neat trick, managing to achieve both—but an even neater trick was the White House's invention of the idea that the impact of the stimulus be measured but the number of jobs "created or saved" by the federal largess pouring out of the treasury in its wake.

It comes as little surprise that the recipients of the stimulus money have been, to put it indelicately, cooking the books. Both ABC News and the Washington, DC Examiner have been monitoring the spending as posted on the government's recovery.gov website and have found egregious errors, including money being spent in non-existent congressional districts and public entities claiming the stimulus money saved their entire workforce.

Vice President Joe Biden, when told of the problems, reportedly told those responsible for the website to "fix it."

Whether this is the original site designed to track the stimulus spending or its multi-million dollar replacement is not clear, at least to me. What is clear is that the whole idea the stimulus has been creating jobs is a sham, a fig-leaf, designed to give the administration something to talk about each time the bad jobs number comes in, as has been the case each month thus far since Obama was inaugurated.

Biden, you may recall, was put in charge of tracking the stimulus by Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress because "Nobody messes with Joe." That's about to be put to the test, since it looks like the people who got the stimulus money have been messing with him thus far.

Having dealt with the "jobs issue" early on in his administration, President Obama thought he could move on to healthcare, a national energy tax, the abolition of "Don't ask, Don't tell," and other issues that were important to his political base. The continued increase in the unemployment numbers, coupled with the bogus claims made on the recovery.gov website, may yet force him back to square one.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/pe...s-stimulus-sham.html

You can't blame one sector for this. Everyone had to make sure there was a plan.

If your neighbor needs help finding job and you know how HELP THEM. It ultimately helps YOU too.

They were too busy with all the other crap that was created in the last decade.

It is definately a non-partisan(so sick of hearing that word) problem.

quote:

Originally posted by FireflyElf:
They were too busy with all the other crap that was created in the last decade.

Cap and trade was NOT a priority. Health care reform was NOT a priority, among other things. And, giving themself a RAISE/BONUS while the rest of America is struggling is a TRAVESTY.

Most of us know that. We have moved on to solving the problem.

I'm tired of the threads in here because all it comes down to is complaining about it, asserting blame and there is absolutely nothing coming forth as to: how about this idea what do you think can we make it work.


So we all just rather have our social threads and not worry for a little bit.

We can all hear and read the news! lol

quote:

Originally posted by FireflyElf:
I'm tired of the threads in here because all it comes down to is complaining about it, asserting blame and there is absolutely nothing coming forth as to: how about this idea what do you think can we make it work.

Let people freely express whatever opinions they wish; such is the nature of conversation. We don't need posts complaining about other people's posts.

I have the right to demand constructive problem solving if you wish to post about people's real problems. I am not going to be chased away by radical trouble making nonsense.

Bashing is definately taboo. We do not have to be subjected to or deal with that.

quote:

Originally posted by FireflyElf:
I have the right to demand constructive problem solving if you wish to post about people's real problems. I am not going to be chased away by radical trouble making nonsense.

Bashing is definately taboo. We do not have to be subjected to or deal with that.

You have no right to DEMAND anything on this board. You have the right to put people on ignore or not entertain the political threads but you have NO RIGHT to tell people what they can or cannot discuss. Got it?

Ok - so my solution:
require companies to maintain at least 75% of their manufacturing in the USA and allow the other 25% to be outsourced. This way, the developing coutries can still develop and more people can get/keep jobs.

This isn't exactly a political message board and this IS the Cabin Down Below section for people to talk about non Tom Petty stuff - so I don't know why anyone would demand any specific type of post over another... I'm just saying...

Not that I always obey those guidelines either.