Thursday, October 22, 2009

Stimulus produced net job loss

When dealing with a subject as inherently "fuzzy" as economics, it is hard to draw hard conclusions based on "what if?" scenarios. Every push and prod is balanced and opposed by unforeseen events and forces. It remains as much an art as a science.

But that being said, it may be time to start drawing tentative conclusions about President Obama's Economic Stimulus Bill, as actual job totals by state now show that 49 out of 50 states have fewer jobs now than before the stimulus passes, and - more significantly - net job losses where the White House's projections predicted job gains. This means either (1) the economy was overall weaker than expected, so the stimulus effect was negligible, or (2) the stimulus was ineffective and may have caused more harm than good.

That being said, the American people clearly wanted a stimulus bill at the time, so we can't claim that we didn't get what we asked for. But one must wonder if the current rumblings about a "second stimulus bill" will help or hurt us in the end.

3 comments:

Heavy Sarcasam said...

That was totaly worth wrecking our dollar and burdening our children with mountains of debt.

quizwedge said...

Part of the problem could also be that stimulus money, at least from one report locally, isn't getting doled out, just promised.
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Nomad said...

This is true. Much of the "emergency stimulus" wound up being earmarked for 2010 or later. So money was pulled OUT of the economy thru taxation, etc. but never re-injected.

Welcome to President Obama's America.