Politico had an article yesterday afternoon showing the White House advisers’ utter confusion about the number of jobs created by the stimulus.
Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”
This goes to show that it is hard to have to defend a position that isn’t true. In this chart and article for The American, I show how not only have many workers lost their jobs since the administration started spending stimulus funds, but that many more workers have exited the labor market.
The civilian labor force shrinks when individuals who were looking for work or were employed decide that their labor market prospects are not good enough to keep looking for a job or to stay employed.
We can draw two conclusions from this data: First, if it weren’t for workers giving up on looking for jobs, the unemployment rate would be much higher. Second, government spending cannot create jobs.
The whole thing here.