Along the campaign trail and through the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, President Obama has been consistent in his promise to create and protect millions of jobs. That promise is beginning to come true as funds start flowing directly to state and federal programs. Some relief should come quickly as all states and most federal programs affected are mandated to spend the money within two years of receipt. For example, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund gets money to each state quickly, with the majority of the fund earmarked for education, which will preserve as many teacher and professor jobs as possible.
The map and tables at ProPublica, which is one of the greatest resources on the web for analysis of the stimulus plan, prompted us to wonder exactly what percentage of each state’s unemployment problem would be hypothetically solved by the total stimulus package. Keep in mind that not all stimulus spending happens at the federal level, and states such as Michigan are using creative methods to breathe life into local economies by restructuring troubled state budgets and enacting business-friendly policies to attract growth. Further, as our recent Visual Guide to Unemployment showed, it is difficult to peg down the actual unemployment rates when the definition is expanded to include people who are underemployed or not seeking unemployment benefits. So, for the sake of consistency, we used the White House’s “Job Impact by Congressional District” (which has had its share of criticism for overestimating the new job totals) to determine the total number of new jobs created by state, and then compared those numbers to the total unemployed persons in each state. The result is a hypothetical percentage of each state’s unemployment that will be solved by the stimulus plan, and while of course this number will fluctuate based on upcoming layoffs, it at least gives a picture of how the proposed job creations impact each state’s current unemployment problem.
Click to enlarge the map above, and also see the table below for the exact data by state.
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Check out the clickable map at recovery.gov for links to more in-depth breakdowns at the state level if you want to know more specifics about how money is distributed in your state for each category of stimulus spending.
17 Comments so far
leave a commentCool map, and impressive numbers for sure. It will be interesting to see how they match up with reality in a year or so.
Gotta be careful about those Dekotas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. They are usually at the top or bottom of most ‘per capita’ lists due to their low populations.
stupid chart appears to have numbers reversed for 2-3 states.
fail
I couldnt help but notice, the states that have the worst unemployment are the ones that get the least benefit…
Ross,
Is there a way to get in touch with you? I’d like to email you about this post. Thanks.
So the Mint people are in the tank for Obama’s pork garbage. Good tidbit to keep in mind.
These numbers are such bullshit!!! They are so wrong!!!
Or maybe, I don’t know, past experience has demonstrated to us empirically that in general, spending stimulates the economy?
It’s odd that all the job creation seems to be happening in Red States.
It’s odd that when you talk about job creation, you just have to add the words “or save” and you can claim a success no matter what. The President started out to *create* 4 million jobs, now it’s at what? 2.5 jobs created OR saved?
What about the other 200 million jobs? Shouldn’t we save those too? Make it illegal to fire anyone. Simple. Done.
Oh, but then they couldn’t appease their special interests, like a high speed train from LA to Vegas, or a new bridge for Microsoft.
The problem with government intervention is that a politician can always claim credit for some positive outcome in the past, with little or no evidence. However, when evidence suggests that something they did caused the current mess we’re in, it’s always the other guy’s fault. With government at all levels now encroaching 1/3 of the economy, it will become almost impossible to do anything without its permission.
So much for freedom…
What a surprise. I was wondering how many comments I would have to read before I saw myoptic righties blasting this.
Cite one specific example where government spending in a recession did not stimulate the economy.
That’s right, you weren’t able to. These comments from dittoheads repeat the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points the same talking points….
This looks like a rerun of Fantasy Island. The response from herwegoagain asks “Cite one specific example where government spending in a recession did not stimulate the economy.” This is why I enjoy debating libs…it’s too easy…like taking candy away from a baby. So, with that out of the way, let’s give herewegoagain the facts…..”Government spending does little to help the economy because, in the budgeting process, political concerns trump economic merit.”…The Heritage Foundation……”Higher taxes on small businesses, higher taxes on investment capital, and a massive new tax regime to finance a risky new program to drive up energy costs and restructure much of the economy according to federal government designs are all policies that would weaken the economy under any circumstances. It is extraordinarily harmful and ill-advised to propose such policies under the present economic conditions.”…The Heritage Foundation……..and this: “During the 1930s, New Deal lawmakers doubled federal spending — and unemployment remained above 20 percent until World War II. More recently, Japan responded to a 1990 recession by passing 10 “stimulus” bills over 8 years (building the largest national debt in the industrialized world) — and their economy remained stagnant. Why do lawmakers believe the same failed approach will succeed for the U.S. today?” The Heritage Foundation. Lastly, we have this…”The idea is that stimulus will revive flagging animal spirits by actually priming consumption. But an ill-designed set of initiatives — a bunch of garbage — may do little more than run up crushing deficits that we’ll pay for in inflation or pass on to our kids.” Will Wilkinson, The Cato Institute.
The Harrisburg Patriot published an article about what Middletown, home of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is going to do with $189,000 of the stimulus money they are going to receive.
Middletown buys electricity from the utility, then jacks up the price and sells it to people who live in town. They are going to use the stimulus money to reduce electricity bills by $189,000 for the next two years. Then prices return to normal. How many jobs does that create? Your tax dollars at work.
Brian
Additionally, here is an interactive chart The New York Times published a few months ago regarding fiscal policy and recessions.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/26/business/economy/20090126-recessions-graphic.html
Where did you get your numbers??. Has anyone else taken the time to tally up the supposed unemployment numbers? I just tallied the unemployed colum and came up with a total of 10,321,737 persons. Based on the July 2008 estimate the current population is around 303,824,640. This means that would put unemployment rate at just shy of 3.4%. Cooking the numbers much? The Bureau of Labour Stats put the unemplyment rate at 8.5% (U3) for march with the broader U6 numbers at over 15%. The unemployment numbers should be between 25.83 and 45.57 Million persons. That is a freaking huge diffence.
Update. I forgot to include only the persons eligable to be considered unemployed by the BLS. As such, the number eligable is roughly 238.1 million… puting the unemployment numbers still too low at close 4.4%. The unemplyment numbers should read between 20.24 and 35.72 million persons. That is still a freaking huge diffence.
So am i financing the 6 guys watching one guy dig a hole?