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twitterStimulus job-count guidelines frustrate
State comptroller says ‘no standards’ for tallying results
Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Bill Raggio
Sun Archives
- Stimulus credited with 5,600-plus jobs in Nevada (10-30-2009)
- Gaming execs credit stimulus with saving Nevada jobs (10-22-2009)
- Stimulus is paying, not that you’d know it here (10-16-2009)
- Wynn: Stimulus plan won’t solve city’s woes (4-10-2009)
- Lawmakers debate wage floor for stimulus jobs (3-5-2009)
Sun Coverage
AP Coverage
- STIMULUS WATCH: Salary raise counted as saved job (11-4-2009)
- STIMULUS WATCH: Stimulus jobs overstated in report (10-29-2009)
Carson City — Forgive the average citizen if the federal stimulus does not appear to him as transparent as promised.
The federal government says that in Nevada the stimulus has directly created or saved 5,658 jobs. The state itself puts that number at 5,080. Sen. Harry Reid’s office says it’s 6,134.
When it comes to measuring the direct effect of the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into Nevada from the federal American Recovery Relief Act, it has become clear that, so far, little is clear.
Not only do the numbers not match up, but instead of representing real bodies in actual jobs, the numbers are estimates — the result of different state agencies using different formulas to calculate stimulus results.
Some local governments, for example, have been told to take the amount of stimulus money they received and divide it by $92,000, the theoretical average wage and benefits of a job. The Nevada Department of Education used $66,681 for its calculation of an average wage and benefit for K-12 employees. And the state’s higher education system figured it at $45,000.
The amorphous jobs numbers have frustrated some legislators, who were left disappointed this week when they tried to figure out how many jobs had been saved or created by the stimulus.
“The original intent of the stimulus was the creation of jobs,” Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said at a legislative hearing on the stimulus Tuesday. “I question the credibility in my own mind of the reports we’re receiving ... I don’t think we’re really getting, or the public is really getting, an accurate picture of what the stimulus is creating with respect to jobs.”
Most of the jobs the stimulus is credited with creating or saving in Nevada are in education, with more than 2,000 each in the higher education and K-12 systems.
Yet, Raggio said, “I don’t for a moment believe that 4,000 teachers would have been laid off if not for the stimulus.”
Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, chairwoman of the Legislature’s stimulus oversight committee, said the purpose of the stimulus was threefold — create jobs, offer tax relief and keep programs such as unemployment assistance and Medicaid going.
“Without the stimulus, there would have been significant cuts to education,” she said, though she acknowledged that quantifying that number is difficult. Still, she sees the stimulus as a benefit.
“Quite frankly, unemployment would have been higher without the stimulus,” she said.
The American Recovery and Relief Act was passed by Congress this year. President Barack Obama said its goal was to create or save 3 million jobs over the next two years and promised an unprecedented level of transparency tracking its progress.
“I wouldn’t say they’re making up numbers, but there are no standards or consistency,” said Nevada Controller Kim Wallin, a Democrat.
Wallin attended a national conference in Washington, D.C., this week along with the governor’s staff, and the bulk of complaints from various state officials centered on how they were supposed to report jobs.
In the months after the stimulus passed, the federal Office of Management and Budget had been guiding states on how to report jobs. Then, in late August or September, it let federal agencies dictate additional guidelines to their state counterparts, Wallin said.
For example, the Nevada Forestry Department had calculated that a project in rural Nevada created 34 jobs under the first guidelines. Under more recent direction, the project was estimated to have created nine jobs, Wallin said.
The federal Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — known to stimulus junkies as the “rat board” — acknowledged that erroneous figures have been reported and promised improvements as the process goes forward.
“The recovery board has said all along that we anticipated mistakes in this first-ever effort to collect data from recipients of federal recovery dollars,” spokeswoman Cheryl Arvidson said. “Many of these mistakes are the result of innocent human error inputting data. There also have been mistakes because of confusion as to what to report and how to calculate the information that is reported.”
Wallin said she hopes the guidelines on calculating job figures would be ready for the next reporting period, in January.
“It was unreasonable to think that this would be just perfect. There’s never been an undertaking of this magnitude before,” she said. “We need to have new guidelines sooner rather than later.”
Discussion: 13 comments so far…
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All this trash talk about made up job numbers is useless.
Bottom line is 10.2% - nothing else matters
President Obama on 11-12-2009, announce a December jobs summit aimed at synching job growth with the massive government spending. Obama said the White House forum will gather CEOs, economists, financial experts and representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups "to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again." He said the forum is intended to prevent making "any ill-considered decisions -- even with the best intentions -- particularly at a time when our resources are so limited. But it's just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we've already taken to put America back to work."
LOL 10 months into his Presidency still provides NO support for Small Business.
Few people seem to understand the dynamics of job levels during a recession. That Jobs have historically been a lagging indicator is true but much more intertwined will fear of the future -- higher costs and lack of demand.
A job position can only exist when there is adequate recovery of costs for the product or services rendered. Costs typically include cost of money, materials, building rent, salary and benefits, and TAXES (35%).
In recent times with inventories controlled by high speed computers businesses can stop the procurement of materials and hiring almost instantly. Job losses are now a leading indicator of a recession. From there de-staffing to match cost recovery is also now lighting fast.
Those workers that are left are on a treadmill to achieve higher productivity -- more results for less man-hours hence the long crawl back. So after a frightening layoff rate in December 2008 and January 2009, the layoffs have slowed every month since January. This means that businesses are bringing staff in line with recoverable costs from sales.
What is quite another course is one of "Hiring" in the face of over leveraged consumers (70 percent of the economy) and stagnate revenue.
Job losses are now a leading indicator and Job gains are still a lagging indicator -- resulting in longer unemployment durations.
Per the SBA Small Businesses with fewer than 20 employees account for 40% of job recovery in the 2001 recovery.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/20...
After 11 months, Obama is still waiting for the Small Business Memo from his economic team.
After 11 months, Obama is still waiting for the Small Business Memo from his economic team.
So what can we do:
- Lower the cost of money, which the Federal Reserve has also done and may soon raise. Wall Street and Big Business has cash reserves (thanks to TARP) waiting for opportunities -- But Small Business is tapped out and needs liquidity help
- lower the cost of your product to increase volume -- this is the deflationary cycle that bean counters abhor
- Innovation which is an important engine in our information economy
- More effective and efficient machinery
- Lower cost than foreign suppliers -- we have a 35% business tax rate
- More people working hence more customers
The Federal Government can immediately and directly impact the cost of business moving it up (health insurance reform, cap and trade, regulations, etc) or down (depreciation rate, tax rate, capital gains tax, credits, value added tax, etc.).
Simply put when a business looks in the future and see higher cost, uncertainty and a stagnant market they cannot hire for the well being of their company and remaining employees.
Obama must finally start to reduce the government's part of the cost of products and services; and increase liquidity for Small Business. When opportunity presents itself business will respond.
The Feds thought no one would actually look at the numbers. This is one of the few times someone in the media has actually questioned Obama and his administration. Obama was caught lying and now they are backtracking.
I'm on pins and needles waiting for the "jobs saved" figure. Let the bs continue...
why haven't the clowns who caused the economic meltdown been charged, tried, and imprisoned?
There is at least one job the stimulus won't be able to save and that is Harry Reids.
Federal stimulus money is being used to save state, county and city government jobs by covering budget shortfalls in each state. The operative word is "Saved" government jobs.
Do a Google search on "stimulus state budget shortfalls".
A report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research says that state and local budget deficits to the tune of $100 billion a year will offset the stimulative effect of the president's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Stimulus dollars used to cover deficits will have no stimulative effect, and the benefit of stimulus money well-spent will be offset if states increase taxes or decrease spending to close budget gaps, the report says.
SOURCE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04...
News stories for each individual states reporting budget shortfalls. Good information!!!!
SOURCE:
http://bobscorner.tumblr.com/post/996566.........
Georgia- State budget shortfall eliminated by cutting $1.5 billion in programs and using $1.3 billion in federal stimulus funds. Atlanta Business Chronicle. March 30, 2009
Idaho-Governor proposes to use federal stimulus funds to offset state budget shortfall. IdahoStatesman.com. March 12, 2009.
Indiana --Senate uses $823 million in federal stimulus funds to eliminate state budget shortfall. Indystar.com April 9, 2009.
Louisiana- Governor uses federal stimulus funds to partially cover state budget shortfall. The Town Talk. March 14, 2009.
Maryland --Passes budget that cuts $866 million and uses $1.5 billion in federal stimulus funds. State still expects a $1 billion state budget shortfall next years. Baltimore Sun. April 13, 2009.
New York -- Governor proposes to eliminate $17 billion state budget shortfall with new taxes, fees and use of federal stimulus funds. WWTI March 30, 2009.
Oklahoma-Federal stimulus funds will help solve $900 million state budget shortfall. KTEN.com March 14, 2009.
Tennessee --Governor uses federal stimulus funds to mitigate state budget shortfall. Chattanooga Times Free Press. March 25, 2009..
Virginia--$3.7 billion State budget shortfall eliminated by use of $1.6 billion in federal stimulus funs; $1.1 billion in cuts; and other measures. PilotOnline.com March 11, 2009
Washington --Democrat Legislators plan to eliminate $9.3 billion state budget shortfall by taxes, fees, use of pension funds; budget cuts, accounting gimmicks, and use of federal stimulus money. Seattle Times. March 31, 2009
They also don't calculate the jobs lost because of the stimulus. They very well may have created 5,000 jobs (most of them with government) and killed 10,000 jobs in the private sector (the money to pay for the jobs comes from the private sector).
Government essentially assumes the money they spend would create these jobs or simply vanish into thin air and do nothing. This, of course, is nonsense.
Interesting how the administration can actually take credit for "theoretical" job savings that are impossible to prove ... and Obama-ites believe it hook, line and sinker.
Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations.
--- "Budget Deficit" vs. "National Debt"---
Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow (ie; use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.
We pay interest on that huge debt. And now the Treasury is having trouble finding lenders!
Source: http://www.federalbudget.com/
More information:
50 examples of government wasteful spending:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/...
Here is the government website tracking the stimulus money:
http://www.recovery.gov/Pages/home.aspx
Enjoy the information!
"Quite frankly, unemployment would have been higher without the stimulus," she said.
Please show me the proof behind your statement hun. When the cost of each of these phoney baloney (see Blazing Saddles) jobs is 500k each what benefit does Joe Taxpayer get? The answer is bupkus. Penny wise and pound foolish is what this is. The kind of logic only the government can justify.
Here's facts. Unemployment claims have been at or above 500k per week for the year. I'm just wondering how when we see that number every week we can even jokingly believe what these numbskulls are spewing. Let's put them on the lie detector and see what they say.
Remember the promise, no more than 7.8% umemployment and greater than 90% private sector jobs. Neither of these two promises will ever come to fruition. Not the kind of change I can believe in.
Politicians are busy with their campaigns for 2010.
Watch this promo for Harry Reid.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/early-l...
The complete lack of job creation is the frustrating part.
Bombastic claims not whithstanding the stimulus is essentially a buy off of the big bankers and contributors to the two party system.
They are happy and thus the media lap dogs are happy.
Cheers and if you are unemployed thank the Republicans and Democrats because they did it together....(as they do most things despite the silly contentions of their friends and fellow travelers in the press)