Friday, October 16, 2009

Obama's Stimulus has "created or saved" 400 jobs in Michigan at a bargain price!


Today, the Detroit Free press announces that President Obama's stimulus has "created or saved" all of 400 jobs (yes a whopping four hundred jobs!) in this woebegone State of Michigan.

So far, stimulus contracts aren't big boost for Michigan jobs

Despite Michigan's worst-in-the-nation unemployment rate, not many jobs -- 400 or so -- have been created or saved in the state so far by federal contracts under the stimulus bill, according to new data released Thursday by the Obama administration.

These jobs were created or saved at a cost of about $300,000 per job. Are these high-paying professional jobs or high-end manufacturing or technical jobs in high demand getting such princely wages - nope it's for construction contracts.

So far, the jobs saved or created in Michigan by federal contracts under the federal stimulus bill have cost about $300,000 apiece.
. . .
Contract spending represents a sliver of overall stimulus spending. Most of the money has gone for direct grants (mainly to help state and local governments and schools avoid layoffs), tax breaks, loans and other programs.

And while only about 400 jobs have been saved or created so far in Michigan through some $120 million in contracts, according to new data posted Thursday by the federal government on www.recovery.gov, more are expected.

In other words, most of the stimulus money has gene to maintain the states out of whack levels of spending, and the cost of jobs being created or saved is completely out of touch with private sector economics.

With jobs being created at a bargain rate of $300,000 per job, it should only cost $300,000,000,000.00 to get the million Michigan workers whose jobs were lost recently back to work. Never mind that it would be cheaper and just as ridiculous to just mail out checks for 50,000 to each of the million unemployed people, as it would only cost 50,000,000,000.00 and probably "stimulate" the economy more - either that or lead to massive inflation which the stimulus will already do, but at least a million workers will have more gain from it than they would under this stimulus program.

But either way, that's just petty cash to the Obama Administration these days, really.

Update: In addition, the blogprof has a similar and very interesting take on this waste in the making by looking at the entire amount spent - Disaster: Hard Stimulus Data Reveals That Michigan "Saved Or Created" Only 397 Jobs For 620 Million Stimulus Dollars, FAR Short Of 19,500 Claim

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