OCTOBER 15, 2009, 11:13 A.M. ET
Federal Contractors Report 30,000 Stimulus Jobs Added or Saved By LOUISE RADNOFSKY
About 30,000 jobs have been directly created or saved by contractors who received money from the federal stimulus program, according to new reports Thursday.
The reports cover only a small portion of the $787 billion package: spending on infrastructure and social programs being carried out by private companies. Those companies had been awarded around $16 billion, of which they had spent $2 billion, by the beginning of this month.
In all, contractors reported that they had created or saved 30,383 jobs by the beginning of October, according to data summarized by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees how the stimulus plan is carried out.
Colorado-based contractors reported 4,695 jobs created or saved of any state, from around $550 million of stimulus money awarded, of which $48 million has been spent. Contractors in Michigan, the state with the highest unemployment, reported just 397 jobs created or saved.
The low numbers could fuel more attacks by critics of the stimulus plan, who already cite the 9.8% unemployment rate, a 25-year-high, as proof that the plan isn't working.
The Obama administration, which will be promoting the stimulus plan at events in Louisiana and Missouri Thursday, will also have to explain how the job numbers reported by contractors square with a projection from the Council of Economic Advisers that the overall package kept 1 million jobs in the economy in August which would otherwise have been lost.
The CEA made its estimate by comparing current economic indicators with a projection of how the economy would have looked if the stimulus hadn't passed. It also included an estimate of jobs created or saved indirectly by stimulus spending -- including the package's tax cuts and aid to the unemployed.
White House chief economist Jared Bernstein said in a statement that it was "too soon to draw any global conclusions from this partial and preliminary data" but that early indications were positive and supported the council's estimate.
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@dowjones.com
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What a massive waste of money this was.