ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:
With a new report out this week touting job creation stemming from the stimulus package, Obama administration officials have fanned out to make the case that the $787 billion measure is doing its job.
That's no accident. On ABCNews.com's “Top Line” today, Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told us that perceptions of the stimulus matter.
“Sure — I mean confidence in how the economy is performing both by businesses, families, consumers always makes a difference,” Bernstein said. “But I think the critical kind of kernel of truth in there is that of course the Recovery Act is very much working. We have saved or created about a million jobs thus far.”
“The Recovery Act has clearly helped both on the overall macro-economy side but also on the jobs side. Now that doesn't mean it has offset the massive jobs deficit that greeted us when we got here — by no means. And the president's acutely aware of that. But it is helping.”
Bernstein also said that administration officials pay attention to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which hit 10,000 this week, though he cautioned that it's only one of many economic indicators of importance to the White House.
Asked if crossing the 10,000 threshold brings a “good feeling” to the White House, Bernstein responded:
“To some extent. The fact is I think the Dow has crisscrossed the 10,000 [mark] multiple times since it bottomed out back in 2007. But I think where your intuition is correct there is that we certainly notice when the market is on an upturning trend, and we appreciate that from the perspective of people who have investments.”
He continued: “Now, I'm not saying that's made up all of the losses by any stretch of the imagination. But we're very interested in the extent to which our interventions and those of the Fed have helped pull financial markets and the overall economy back from the brink. That's what's important there.”
Though Obama aides initially said that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8 percent, it's now close to 10 percent. Bernstein and other administration officials say, however, that the job market would be much worse without the stimulus, and that the full extent of the economic crisis wasn't evident at the time they made their initial projections.
The report released this week found that 30,383 jobs have been directly created by money spent so far under the stimulus — a number Bernstein said “exceeds our expectations.” The numbers, he said, “point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months.”
“I think you've got to put that [30,383 figure] context. Remember, this report covers $16 billion, OK? We're talking about a $787 billion package; we're talking about direct recipient reporting 30,000 private sector jobs on about 2 percent of the overall bill. And remember, it's just direct jobs — it doesn't count the indirect jobs that you get when people go out and spend that money,” Bernstein said.
“What those numbers suggest is that we are on track to do what we said we're doing through the Recovery Act, which is to help offset some of the very deep pain out there in the labor market,” he said.
Watch the full interview with Jared Bernstein, including a discussion of why the Obama administration wants to give an additional $250 to Social Security recipients this year, HERE.
We also debated the week's politics with Republican strategist Ron Bonjean and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.
One hot topic: Is Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. — who launched a pair of new TV ads this week, 13 months before the election — in trouble?
Said Bonjean: “When you put up an ad this far away from the elections in 2010, it's a big signal that he's in a lot trouble. And you know frankly, the two Republican challengers right now [who] are in a primary, lead him in the polls. I think you could put a ham sandwich against Harry Reid right now and lead in the polls.”
Kofinis said Reid has to deal with the “conflicting goals” of leading Senate Democrats and seeking another Senate term, but he called it “laughable” and “ridiculous” to suggest that Reid's on the ropes.
As for the ads, “he's not going to have a problem with money, but I think it's also to basically make it less likely that the two challengers can raise money or seem as formidable,” Kofinis told us. “So it's kind of a smart thing to do. But it's a year out — I'm not going to worry about it.”
Watch the full discussion, touching on health care and the search for bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, HERE.
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