Obama administration claims to have created at least 30,000 jobs as a result of the $787 billion economic stimulus program were over-stated by about 5,000 jobs, according to an analysis by the Associated Press.
There was no evidence the administration purposely sought to inflate the jobs creation data, AP reported, but its own numbers suggest otherwise:
AP said it “found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced.
“For example:
· A company working with the Federal Communications Commission reported that stimulus money paid for 4,231 jobs, when about 1,000 were produced.
· A Georgia community college reported creating 280 jobs with recovery money, but none was created from stimulus spending.
· A Florida child care center said its stimulus money saved 129 jobs but used the money on raises for existing employees.”
A White House spokesman told AP that all of the errors identified by the news organization had been fixed, but as of this morning the government’s Recovery.gov web site is still claiming to have created 30,383 new jobs via the stimulus program.
