According to the Congressional Budget Office, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been more beneficial for the economy than previous estimates indicated, and the lingering effects of it can still be seen more than one year after it ended.
The economy would have been in much worse shape without the 2009 stimulus—-which increased employment in the third quarter of this year by as many as 3.3 million full-time jobs, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. [...]
The CBO figures released Tuesday estimate that the stimulus package raised the gross domestic product this past quarter by 0.3 percent to 1.9 percent.
The CBO report provided a broad range of the estimated number of full-time jobs created because of the stimulus - from a low of 500,000 to a high of 3.3 million jobs. [...]
The effects of the stimulus are fading after having peaked in the first half of 2010, the report noted.
However, the CBO estimates that the stimulus will raise GDP by 0.1 percent to 0.8 percent next year and employment by 200,000 to 1.1 million jobs.
We as now know, the economy was in far worse shape when President Obama took office than anyone had anticipated. And because of our collective underestimate, the stimulus package passed in 2009 was smaller than it should have been.
With that said however, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus), is still stimulating the economy more than one year after its expiration in early 2010.
The stimulus was not a failure.