Yesterday the White House Council of Economic Advisors issued a report saying Democrats’ 2009 stimulus law “by some measures has exceeded the original goal of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010.” 

Those “measures” must not include what experts call “data,” and most people call “facts.”

Consider the comparisons below between what the White House said would happen if their stimulus plan passed in terms of jobs and unemployment with what actually happened and ask how the current 9.6% unemployment rate and 130 million jobs “exceed” the White House’s predictions.

Jobs

In their January 2009 report “The Jobs Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” the Administration predicted there would be 137.55 million jobs in the U.S. economy by now if their stimulus plan passed.  Official U.S. Department of Labor data show there are currently 130.46 million jobs – over 7 million fewer than the Administration prediction.

Unemployment Rate

In the same January 2009 report, the Administration predicted the U.S. unemployment rate by now would be close to 7%. Official U.S. Department of Labor data show the current unemployment rate is 9.6% — 2.5 percentage points higher than the Administration prediction. 

Additional Facts Rebutting White House Claims 

1.       Democrats promised their stimulus would create millions of jobs, many through “shovel-ready projects.”  It hasn’t. 

o   While Democrats promised stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs, the reality is far different.  To date, 48 out of 50 states have lost jobs. 

o   President Obama recently stated “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.”  So it’s no wonder more Americans think Elvis is alive than believe stimulus created jobs.

2.       Democrats promised stimulus would keep unemployment below 8%.  It hasn’t.

o   Instead unemployment reached 10% and has remained above 9.5% for 15 consecutive months – the longest stretch since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

o   In addition to that high official unemployment, millions of other Americans simply dropped out of the labor force – creating what Administration officials have called the invisible unemployed.  If those who left or never entered the labor force were counted, the unemployment rate would be over 11% now instead of the current 9.6% “official” unemployment rate.
 

3.       The flood of deficit spending from Democrats’ policies has driven the debt to almost $14 trillion.  That debt is so huge it is already hurting job creation. 

o   Using the Administration’s own forecasts, the surge in debt caused by stimulus and other Democrat policies has already destroyed 1 million jobs.

4.       While the job situation seems to have finally stopped getting worse, the trickle of private sector job creation in 2010 is so anemic that at the current rate it would take until 2017 to recover the jobs lost during the recession.  

o   That’s longer than it took to recover jobs lost during the Depression of the 1930s.  

o   The Washington Post recently produced an analysis that showed if the current rate of economic growth continued, the unemployment rate will remain stuck above 10% during the coming decade, reaching 11.9% in 2020.

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