According to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office, between 200,000 and 1.5 million people employed during the month of March owed their jobs to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus).
(via CBPP)
A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report estimates that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) increased the number of people employed by between 200,000 and 1.5 million jobs in March. In other words, between 200,000 and 1.5 million people employed in March owed their jobs to the Recovery Act. This estimate, by Congress' non-partisan economic and budget analysts, is more comprehensive than the 160,000 jobs that ARRA recipients reported in April, CBO explains.
ARRA succeeded in its primary goal of protecting the economy during the worst of the recession. The CBO report finds that ARRA's impact on jobs peaked in the third quarter of 2010, when up to 3.6 million people owed their jobs to the Recovery Act. Since then, the Act's job impact has gradually declined as the economy recovers and certain provisions expire. More than 90 percent of ARRA funds were spent by March, according to CBO.
While the report focuses primarily on the first quarter of 2012, CBO also projects that in the current quarter (the second quarter of 2012), there are 200,000 to 1.2 million more people employed because of ARRA.
Three years after passing the stimulus, which was not as ambitious as it otherwise may have been if the administration had more accurate measures of the economy at the time of its passing, it's still employing a large number of people.
Meanwhile, in Wingnutville, and in whatever alternate universe Mitt Romney is visiting from, the stimulus killed jobs and kicked your dog.