Calculator abuse?

Some might more accurately call it taxpayer abuse or even a fraud committed against the American people:

... the White House claimed 640,329 jobs have been created or saved because of the $159 billion in stimulus funds allocated as of Sept. 30.

...

The White House argues that the actual job number is actually larger than 640,000 -- closer to 1 million jobs when one factors in stimulus jobs added in October and, more importantly, jobs created indirectly, such as "the waitress who's still on the job," Vice President Biden said today.

So let's see. Assuming their number is right -- 160 billion divided by 1 million. Does that mean the stimulus costs taxpayers $160,000 per job?

Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, called that "calculator abuse."

He said the cost per job was actually $92,000 -- but acknowledged that estimate is for the whole stimulus package as of the end of 2010.

Think about this for just a second.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) as of the end of September was 5.4 million.  Abusing my own calculator, I come up with $29,629.63 for each.

If you're one who buys into the notion that the government should be assisting these people, wouldn't a check for $30k have done it?

Crossposted(*).

Comments

[Mommynator]

A check to each of them for 30k would have made more sense - they could have paid off some bills and maybe have felt encouraged to keep looking for a job.