As the new jobless claims came out with a much higher than expected increase to 9.7%, Vice President Joe Biden was touting a claim at the same time that the stimulus package has "created or saved" 1 million jobs.
Damn, 1,000,000 is a LOT of jobs. I thought the number of 216,000 jobs lost last month was a big number but 1 MILLION "created or saved"? Wow. With a number like that you would think jobless claims would be falling or at least stagnant.
Within those 216,000 jobs lost I actually saw statistics pointing to where they were lost. Which industries were responsible for cutting the workforce and by how many. As I searched for some form of statistical evidence to the Vice President's claim that the stimulus had "created or saved" 1,000,000 jobs I came upon a fact I found to be very strange......there isn't any statistical evidence to back up his claim.
I thought to myself, ok, maybe you aren't looking in the right place. I checked the Dept. of Labor. Nothing there. The Bureau of Labor Statistics? Nothing. Treasury department? Nothing there either. Department of Commerce? Not one statistic. So I ask you Mr. Biden, with all due respect, where the hell do you get the numbers that you go on tv and use to tout the success of your stimulus package? I sure can't find them anywhere. I know I don't have the access to the type of communication systems that you do as the Vice President, but I just can't find them anywhere. But i'm sure you will go on using these numbers every moth that a new jobless report comes out.
Never mind that no one -- not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- actually measures "jobs saved." As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama's jobs claims are "based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs". Oh, so now I get it. There is no way to actually know if you "created or saved" 1 job, let alone 1,000,000.
Next month maybe try having some statistics as to exactly where you "created or saved" these jobs with your stimulus money. Hell, last month I hired 10 people and didn't let any of my current staff go so I guess I can claim that I "created or saved" 110 jobs last month. And I did it without using any taxpayer funds.
|
|
| |
|
|
Further to the point. This stimulus bill was not about the stock market but about jobs and creating them something it has not done.
They have gone up slightly but they have had their down days as well. The numbers don't count part time folks like me or the people who have given up looking so the real number is more like 16%. But here is the issue if we keep going up higher on the unemployment number that is going to drag other parts of the economy down.
Erock... be pragmatic. Do you think I like that I'm only making a couple hundred bucks a month? And the numbers don't even factor in people like me who are vastly underemployed. Find me a single respected economist that says we should see better unemployment and underemployment numbers early in a recovery. And look at the damn stocks. Not a great predictor, but a predictor nonetheless, and they've moved up substantially since Obama took over and since the stimulus package.
Brinmat we see some small signs of it improving but guess what? Not enough. and the number that matters is the unemployed number the more unemployed the fewer the shoppers, the fewer orders placed. I remember last month Obama so happy that the unemployment number went down. Well guess what? It went back up they thought it would only go up to 9.5% again but it went up to 9.7% that is not good.
Smashey, don't take this away from them. It's how they sleep at night.
Unemployment lowering is always the last aspect of an economic recovery. Economists agree on that. Other areas of the economy have been improving.
Yes but we rushed this stimulus to save or create millions of Jobs back in Feb. So far it has been a failure.
I will agree with you to an extent on that Brin but at least with tax cuts you can measure tax income and consumer spending. Measuring a 'saved' job is impossible. I just want them to either show me where they saved them specifically or quit using false numbers.
edit: The first "capitalist" should be "socialist"
What is a saved job exactly? How do we measure that? Thats open to fuzzy interpration.
Both parties use broad economic estimates and predictions that realistically cannot possibly show what's actually happening. Unless you're a staunch capitalist or laissez-faire capitalist, you have to realize economics in a nation as large as ours gets muddy. I can't defend the numbers being released, but I'd argue neither could the Bush administration when it was bragging about it's tax cuts.
thanks for taking the bait Brin. My question to you is, how do you measure whether or not those jobs would have been lost had the stimulus not passed? You can't and that is why there are no statistics to back up the claims.
"I hired 10 people and didn't let any of my current staff go so I guess I can claim that I "created or saved" 110 jobs last month. And I did it without using any taxpayer funds." If those other 100 weren't at risk of losing their jobs, you didn't save them. A "saved" job is one that would've been lost.
It's an unmeasurable formula erock. There is no way to know how many jobs have been saved. You can measure how many jobs have been created between two points in time but there is no way to factually and truthfully say how many jobs were "saved". Most of the created jobs they are referring to are government jobs which is ok but I would like them to break down the claims as to how many were created and where and how many were saved and where. However they won't because they can't. No way to measure it, therefore the claims are false.
Leave it to the Government to use fuzzy math.
|
<< Home