CHESSNOID

Our government has spent some big bucks to get this economy restarted.  Originally, the claims that Obama and his economic advisers made earlier this year to get this stimulus package passed was that it would create or save 2 million, 3 million, and then finally 4 million jobs.  I have never liked promises that can’t be measured.

Today, I saw reports of the first stimulus jobs created from the money we spent.  I thought it would be interesting to break it down.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) —

The White House on Thursday unveiled the first hard data on how many jobs the $787 billion recovery act has created.

So far, companies that have received stimulus contracts directly from the federal government have created 30,383 jobs. These firms have been awarded $16 billion in contracts, and have actually been paid $2.2 billion.

Stimulus-fueled job creation has become a very controversial issue. The White House has faced blistering attacks by Republicans, who contend that the recovery act has failed to live up to its promise to put Americans back to work.

We can break down the numbers in 2 ways here.  First we take the money spent and divide that number by the number of  jobs created.  Let’s see:

$2,200,000,000.00 divided by 30,383 jobs equals $72,408.91.

That means it cost $72,408.91 for every job created at least with the money spent so far.  I double counted the zeros to make sure it was accurate.
Second, if we take the numbers we have allocated to spend or awarded we would take the higher number and divide it the same way.  That would be:

$16,000,000,000.00 divided by 30,383 jobs equals $526,610.27.

That means it cost $526,610.27 for every job created at least with the money that has been awarded.  The problem with this number is maybe more jobs will be created as that money is spent.  Then again maybe not, but it is not as accurate as the first numbers.

Does $72,408.91 sound like a lot of money to create just ONE job? I get the feeling someone pockets most of that money even before that job is created.

On a positive note, we finally have some hard numbers to compare, to evaluate,  and to determine if  our taxpayer money is being spent wisely.