The Magically Appearing Stimulus Jobs

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: We’ve long been wondering what taxpayers would get for their $18 million Website redesign at Recovery.gov.

ABC’s Jonathan Karl is reporting on one thing we never guessed might have been purchased: Jobs created in congressional districts that do not exist.

There’s Arizona’s 15th Congressional District, where 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending, according to Recovery.gov.

Arizona only has eight House seats. So the $34 million that Recovery.gov tells us was spent in the state’s 86th district is equally incredible.

Another gem: More than $36 million in stimulus funds spent between the 69th and 99th districts of the Northern Mariana Islands — a self-governing US territory that gets only one (non-voting) representative in the House. (Did Jack Abramoff do a better lobbying job than anyone could have imagined?)

These figures seem more likely to be data-entry errors than evidence of fraud or corruption.

But for an administration that’s prided itself on scrupulous accounting surrounding everything connected to the stimulus, mistakes like these contribute to suspicions that counting jobs “saved or created” is more art than science.

And there’s more in that vein today: ABC’s Matthew Jaffe reports that the administration has been forced to slice 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on stimulus spending because of what officials deemed to be “unrealistic data” flowing in from stimulus recipients.

UPDATE: After this story first posted, Mr. Goolsbee contacted ABC News to clarify his use of the word ?market? to mean the employment forecasting market as opposed to the stock market. ABC News updated the headline and the story to reflect that clarification.

ABC News? David Chalian reports: A top economic adviser to President Obama said today he was unsurprised by the August jobs report showing the worst unemployment rating in 26 years, but pointed to the better than expected monthly job losses as a sign that the economy is headed in the right direction.

?Everyone knew, we internally, the President has been saying, the private forecasters have been saying that the unemployment rate would end up peaking out at something over 10% so I don?t think it was any surprise in that,? said Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee, a member of the president?s Council of Economic Advisers. ?I think the market clearly took the main surprise from this being job losses were significantly smaller than what had been anticipated by some 30,000 – 40,000,? he added.

The unemployment rate hit 9.7% for the month of August, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a shedding of fewer jobs in a one month period than at any time over the last year. The Labor Department estimates 216,000 jobs were lost in August.

?We?re going in the right direction in the sense that the job losses have been getting smaller and smaller each month. When the President took over we were losing 740,000 jobs a month and now it?s down to 216,000,? Goolsbee noted during an interview on ABC News? ?Top Line.?

As for those initial forecasts from the Obama team that unemployment would top out at 8 percent, Mr. Goolsbee explained that every financial prognosticator got that one wrong.

?There?s not any question now in anyone?s mind that this was the most serious recession since 1929 and that we were teetering on the edge of a depression. So the baseline was substantially worse than anyone predicted, he said. ?But the impact of the stimulus on keeping the unemployment rate from going even higher, everyone sensible is in agreement that it has been able to do so,? Goolsbee said in an effort to trumpet the Obama administration?s $787 billion economic recovery plan.

Mr. Goolsbee also dismissed Republican criticism that the stimulus is not having its desired impact since the unemployment rate continues to climb.

?When you see the people criticizing the stimulus, criticizing it on really contradictory grounds, ?Ahh it?s running up the deficit, ahhh it?s not having an impact on jobs,? one gets the sense it?s kind of the congressional version of the East German judge,? he said. ?They had their critiques written out before they even saw what was in the stimulus and so I think we ought to turn to the people who make a living doing forecasts and evaluating the economy and those people are saying that its having a big, positive impact,? Goolsbee added.

Watch the entire interview with Austan Goolsbee HERE.

As he does each Friday, ABC?s George Stephanopoulos also joined us on ?Top Line? today and set the stage for President Obama?s big health care speech to a Joint Session of Congress next week.

Watch what George says the president needs to accomplish in the speech as he also reveals some internal White House strategy debate on just how the president goes about achieving those goals.

Be sure to tune in on Sunday to ?This Week with George Stephanopoulos?when George sits down with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle and Bob Dole.

Watch the entire interview with George StephanopoulosHERE.

White House Report: Stimulus Will Create or Save 1.5M Jobs — We Think

ABC’s Lisa Chinn and Rick Klein reports:

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report today predicting that the stimulus package will save or create 1.5 million jobs by the end of this year. That’s in line with previous White House estimates.

But there’s a big caveat: Because there is no uniform, reliable reporting formula for states and agencies to use to calculate real jobs saved and created, there is no way to fact-check the projections.

Rather than measuring actual jobs created, the CEA estimate is based on a formula widely used by economists: that a 1 percent increase in GDP equates to approximately 1 million jobs.

The council also makes the assumption that GDP will grow, due to an increase in government purchases, and tax decreases that have only just taken effect.

It is, the report concedes, “an imperfect” measurement.

“The macroeconomic methodology used to derive the aggregate jobs estimates provides only an imperfect way to try to separate out the different types of jobs created by government spending,” the report states.

Actual reports of jobs created, while required by Congress for entities receiving stimulus funds, will provide “some independent documentation of jobs created or retained by the Act” — but won’t be the way the White House measures progress, according to the report.

“While such independent documentation is immensely valuable, it is important to be aware of the limitations of the reported jobs numbers,” the report states.

The administration continues to defend its initial assessment that the Recovery Act will ultimately create or save 3.5 million jobs. But the new report includes the caveat that the bulk of that increase will be seen at the end of 2010.

President Obama said at a news conference last month that the stimulus bill had already “saved or created over 150,000 jobs.”

The Labor Department, meanwhile, reported last week that the economy shed 539,000 jobs last month — fewer than analysts were predicting.

The CEA must also release a report to Congress in August on its analysis of the economic impacts of the Recovery Act.

LaHood: Stimulus Jobs Will be Sustainable — if Congress Acts

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: With the Obama administration selling the on-the-ground-impact of the stimulus bill, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told us today that infrastructure projects are on their way to creating “thousands” of new jobs — jobs that he said will be sustainable if Congress follows up with a comprehensive transportation bill.

“They’ll be sustainable because Congress, right on the heels of this, is gonna pass an authorization bill to authorize another highway bill for another five years, which will include additional projects,” LaHood said on ABCNews’com’s “Top Line.”

“Not the ones we’re funding . . . but additional projects — more roads, more bridges, more light rail, high-speed rail, thinking a little bit differently about how we do transportation,” he added. “So, are they sustainable? They’ll be sustainable if Congress passes the authorization on the heels of the stimulus 18 months down the road here.”

On Thursday, President Obama is set to unveil a major high-speed rail initiative — paid for, at least initially, by money that’s already been approved by Congress as part of the stimulus.

LaHood also suggested he would be taking a relatively hands-off approach on the always-controversial issue of earmarks.

“I think the leadership of Congress has gotten the message on earmarks,” said LaHood, who requested and received earmarks frequently when he represented an Illinois House district. “They’re really — the American taxpayer doesn’t like them, the President has sent a pretty loud message that he doesn’t like them, and it’ll be up to the Congress to decide whether they really want to go against the will of the people here.”

He added: “Well, look, it’s not going to be up to me. I’m not going to write the bill. I didn’t get elected to anything. But these members of Congress will have to make a decision whether they want to continue with the level of criticism that’s been leveled against earmarks, or whether they really want to do it in a way that reflects what the needs are around the country.”

Though LaHood joined President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden yesterday in celebrating the 2,000th transportation project to get approved, work has begun on only a small fraction of those projects.

But that’s about to change, LaHood said.

“As soon as the weather breaks in most of the country, you’re going to see an enormous number of people working on roads and bridges, and I think it’s probably another month,” he said. “You know, I was in Illinois over the weekend and it was snowing, so it’s pretty hard to get a shovel in the ground when you have that kind of weather. But within the next 30 days, a lot of these projects are going to begin and you’re going to see working — in good paying jobs, by the way.”

In addition, as something of an Obama emissary to Republicans — LaHood is the only former GOP elected official in the Cabinet — he all but guaranteed Republican support for some major Obama initiatives later this year.

“I think Republicans want to be helpful on energy, on education, and on healthcare,” he said. “And I think — I’ve heard the President say this — we’re gonna continue to reach out to Republicans, we want them to be a part of helping us solve these very, very complex problems, and you know, it’s not a political slogan with the President. I’m proof of it, I’m a Republican, I’m included in the Cabinet, and so it’s not a political slogan, and I think you’ll see the President and some of the rest of us reach out to Republicans.”

Click HERE to see our interview with Secretary LaHood.

We also chatted with Republican strategist Kevin Madden about the politics of stimulus spending, the Minnesota Senate race, and tomorrow’s nationwide “tea party” protests.

Click HERE to see the interview with Madden.

Dismal perspective on jobs

ABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf reports:

It was notable back in December when Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Keith Hall told a congressional panel about his bureau’s November jobs report: “If I were to characterize this jobs report I would say it’s very dismal … it’s maybe one of the worst that the BLS has ever produced.”

The BLS has been around for 124 years, so this was quite a statement. It turned out it was a little overstated — Hall, when he spoke four months ago and the economy had shed 533,000 jobs, was not including the Great Depression. November’s report was the worst jobs report since 1974 but it was nothing compared to the months to come. The economy shed 681,000 jobs in December and 655,000 in January.

Even bearing in mind Hall’s tendency for hyperbole, speaking before the Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill today he had another stark characterization for the February report, which showed the economy had shed 651,000 jobs.

“To put this in perspective,” Hall said to Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., “we’ve only had maybe 10 months where we’ve lost 500,000 or more in the history of our series since 1940. This is four of the ten. All in a row.”

And things might not be getting any better. He told Rep. Carolyn Maloney, R-N.Y., who asked if there was any indication that job losses might be slowing, “The answer is probably ‘no’ right now. … In fact, this report may show a slight acceleration of job loss compared to even previous months.”