I have made some very rough calculations to come to the conclusion that President Obama has saved 5 Million jobs since he got the The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in February of 2009.

Here is how I came to that conclusion. I got the job loss data from January 2009 through February 2010 from the Bureau Of Labor Statistics. Had the job losses for the month before the ARRA act was passed continued through February 2010, the cumulative job losses would have been 9 million jobs. These are the jobs that would have been lost if the rate of job loss had not gotten any worse nor any better without Obama’s actions.

The actual cumulative job loss over that period has been 4 million jobs. So, crudely, we can estimate that Obama’s actions have saved 5 million jobs.

I show the data and my calculations below.

Data from Bureau Of Labor Statistics

Data extracted on: February 17, 2010 (8:45:11 PM)

Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National)

1-Month Net Change
Series Id: CES0000000001
Seasonally Adjusted
Super Sector: Total nonfarm
Industry: Total nonfarm
NAICS Code: –
Data Type: ALL EMPLOYEES, THOUSANDS

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2007	194	104	239	92	149	55	-20	-71	52	86	128	70
2008	-10	-50	-33	-149	-231	-193	-210	-334	-458	-554	-728	-673
2009	-779	-726	-753	-582	-347	-504	-344	-211	-225	-224	64	-150(P)
2010	-20(P)
P : preliminary

The following table shows my calculations.

Data Source for Job Loss column is http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?series_id=CES0000000001&output_view=net_1mth

For whatever reason, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette decided to publish a letter about these 5 million jobs.

Follow this link to read the 47 page report of the Council Of Economic Advisers, The Economic Impact Of The American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009 Second Quarterly Report January 13, 2010.

As part of the ARRA legislation the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) was charged with providing to Congress quarterly reports on the effects of the Recovery Act on overall economic activity, and on employment in particular.

Read the details at the above link so you can see what the report actually told the Congress instead of just hearing the sound bites you are likely to get from the politicians and the  news media.

There are fascinating details about exactly where the changes to the economy have occurred.

Follow this link to the page at Democracy For America where you can sign on as a citizen cosponsor to the letter from Senate Democrats to Senate leader Harry Reid.

Dear Leader Reid:

We respectfully ask that you bring for a vote before the full Senate a public health insurance option under budget reconciliation rules.

There are four fundamental reasons why we support this approach – its potential for billions of dollars in cost savings; the growing need to increase competition and lower costs for the consumer; the history of using reconciliation for significant pieces of health care legislation; and the continued public support for a public option.

You can read the rest of the letter at the Democracy For America web site.

Follow this link to a CNN opinion piece by Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School.

What a great suggestion for President Obama.  He can use the Eisenhower technique  to lose the next election but go down in history as being prophetic.

Maybe the headline means that President Obama can model Ike, but he would be a fool to do so.

You seldom see published the following graph:

Follow this link to the page on OFA web site that makes the case for what President Obama has already accomplished.

One year in, the evidence is clear – and growing by the day – that the Recovery Act is working to cushion the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression and lay a new foundation for economic growth.

• According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Recovery Act is already responsible for as many as 2.4 million jobs through the end of 2009
• As a result, job losses are a fraction of what they were a year ago, before the Recovery Act began

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

• Cut taxes for 95 percent of working families through the Making Work Pay tax credit
• Cut taxes for small businesses
• Provided loans to over 42,000 small businesses
• Funded over 12,500 transportation construction projects nationwide, ranging from highway construction to airport improvement projects
• Made multi-billion dollar investments in innovation, science and technology that are laying the foundation for our 21st century economy
• Provided critical relief for state governments facing record budget shortfalls, including help to prevent cuts to Medicaid and creating or saving over 300,000 education jobs

Economists on the left and the right have stated that the Recovery Act has helped avert an even worse economic disaster.

Follow this link to the CNN story Stimulus created jobs, controversy, backlash which reports on the above posting and adds some information of its own.

Mike Pickett, CEO of Onvia, a Seattle, Washington, firm that advises clients who may be looking to bid on contract work and tracks government contract spending, told CNN the stimulus so far is a mixed bag.

Picket estimated “roughly $68 billion have actually reached contractors and sub-contractors. We estimate that has delivered… or saved about 500,000 jobs.”

“It looks like the majority of the remaining funds — some $200 billion — will leave Washington and reach contractors this year. And that should increase the jobs created or saved number to around 1.6 million. And I think that’s where it’ll cap.”

Yet, despite the majority of the stimulus funds for job growth not having been spent yet, the nay sayers are repeating the lie that the stimulus is over and it’s all down hill from here.

I guess the Obama administration has decided that if the press won’t report the facts, they will have to do it themselves.  The poll cited in the CNN article shows the public holding onto badly misinformed ideas.  And who helps the public to remain misinformed?