Government at Work for You...Saving Jobs at What Expense?

I am taking a economics class and have run across some interesting numbers.

According to recovery.gov

www.recovery.gov...

The government has saved 640,329 jobs so far with the Obama economic stimulus plan. Hey thats great. Look how many jobs we've saved. Look how we are working for you. Lets take a look at just how much these jobs have cost the American tax payer.

The government has released $157.8 billion dollars so far of the economic stimulus plan. So to save these 640,329 jobs they spent $246,346 dollars per job. Now the average salary for these jobs that were saved was $59,867 dollars. The census bureau states that the average median household income in 2007 was $50,233. So far the math is not looking so good.

en.wikipedia.org...

At $59,867 dollars, if the govenment had just used the funds to pay a years worth of labor, they could have created 2.6 million jobs. Thats 1,959,671 jobs more than what they saved. And people want to give more control of their lives to the government?? They actually think that they government can do a better job?? This is sickening, truely sickening.

Edit to clarify the title a bit more

[edit on 8-12-2009 by six]

Welcome to economics. If you're living in reality you will be regularly pissed off and depressed. If you're just some party politic fanboy you will have lots of fun rationalizing and fudging numbers to get the results you want to see.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


Democrat..Republican...What ever party you root for, these number should make you mad as hell.

With the unemployment rate hovering at 10% those 2.6 million jobs could have made almost a full percenatge point drop in the unemployment rate. Plus at $59,867 per year, how many people would have actually gotten a raise from their previous salary if those funds had been used to create jobs instead of save them? When did the public become so blind?

reply to post by six


I think it was last month or week the Congress and current thief in cheif said that unemployment dropped from10.2 to 10 % GREAT!!! excpet for one thing the reason the numbers dropped was because people ran out of benefits=)

reply to post by poedxsoldiervet


What they also did not tell you that a large number of those jobs were just seasonal jobs. So any effect they have on the unemployment rate is temporary.

How does one measure a saved job in the first place? I always wondered that? Are the jobs really worth saving in the first place? If the company is failed and looking for a handout to curb bankruptcy, then why are we floating it? If something is tried and doesnt pass the test, do you continue to use the same thing?

reply to post by dizzie56


Its hard to measure a saved job when the administration cant even say what criteria they used to define a saved job. You would hope that once something that they tried, didnt work that they would not use it again. But with the numbers that are out there, I dont think that they are that smart or they have a totally different agenda.