OPINION:
The Obama administration told us in the fall that the stimulus bill created or saved 650,000 jobs. Because unemployment has risen since the stimulus was implemented, one wonders how our government is counting a job as “saved.”
Even economists can’t seem to agree on that. While most in the press have decided simply to look at the federally reported numbers, some actually have investigated them a bit and got some shocking surprises.
The Chicago Breaking News Center, powered by the Chicago Tribune, reported the following on Nov. 3, 2009:
The North Chicago School District got $4.7 million in funds. The report says it saved 473 teachers’ jobs - but the district only employs 290 teachers.
Dolton-Riverdale School District 148 said funds saved 382 full-time teaching jobs, but that’s 142 more than the district actually has.
Kankakee School District 111 showed 665 full-time jobs saved, but when questioned, top school officials said they only employ a total of 600 full- and part-time workers.
We should note that the biggest discrepancies in this admittedly small sample appear to be tied to government workers in unionized work forces. Given union support of the Democratic Party - and the fact that the federal government’s report shows that’s where most jobs were created or saved - we ought to be questioning this kind of “math.”
ED JOHNSON
Royal Oak, Mich.
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