Hey, remember the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? (You know, the Republican "four letter word" also known as the "stimulus?")
Well guess what?
A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) increased the number of people employed by between 1.0 million and 2.9 million jobs as of June.
In other words, between 1.0 million and 2.9 million people employed in June owed their jobs to the Recovery Act. This estimate, by Congress' non-partisan economic and budget analysts, is more comprehensive than the 550,000 jobs that ARRA recipients reported in July, CBO explains.
While the report focuses primarily on the second quarter of 2011, CBO also includes new projections of the Recovery Act's jobs impact through 2012. It finds that in the current quarter (the third quarter of 2011), there are 0.8 million to 2.5 million more people employed because of ARRA.
The CBO report indicates that ARRA succeeded in its primary goal of protecting the economy during the worst of the recession. As the economy recovers, ARRA's effects will continue to decrease. CBO estimates that ARRA's impact on employment peaked in the third quarter of 2010, when between 1.4 million and 3.6 million people owed their jobs to the Recovery Act.
Not included of course, all those jobs in Florida that would have been, had Governor Rick Scott not thumbed his nose at stimulus dollars for high-speed rail. Luckily people who have smarter leaders in other states are the beneficiaries of Ricky's "genius" business model. Maybe Scott can dazzle the folks in the unemployment line with his "Seven Steps" speech during his next "Let's Get To Work Day?"
As for the rest of the Republican party, tell us about those tax cuts for the "job creators" again?
How's that working out?
