The Jobs Debate

by Gerri Willis 

A report from the White House in the crosshairs today - the Seventh Quarterly Report issued late Friday just before the holiday weekend - says that the administration's $666 billion in stimulus spending created 2.4 million jobs. If you do that math, then, the nation spent $278,000 per job. It would have been cheaper for the government to simply cut $100,000 checks to all the Americans who got jobs as a result of the stimulus - because we would have come out $427 billion ahead.

Now, for their part, the administration is contesting this interpretation of the numbers, saying that some of the spending went to the actual cost of building things, such as construction materials or new factories. But to play devil's advocate here, that construction spending is what made hiring possible. Without the construction materials or factories, there would have been nothing for those workers to do.

And, here's the rub, if you were to have another stimulus to bring us to full employment - let's say a jobless rate of 5 percent - it would cost $1.73 trillion - to employ an additional 6.2 trillion at a cost of $278,000 per person.

Thinking there is no way we can afford it with our $14 trillion in national debt? You're not alone. Back when the debate over the stimulus was raging, Democrats said it was necessary to bring employment below 8 percent. Unfortunately, now we're $666 billion out of pocket and the jobless rate well above 8 percent. The stimulus didn't get us any closer to our economic goals, only further away.