Oversight Committee Republicans Ask President To Explain Methodology Of Jobs ‘Created And Saved' Claims

Press Release

Oversight Committee Republicans Ask President To Explain Methodology Of Jobs ‘Created And Saved' Claims

Despite objective evidence that the President's Economic Stimulus is failing to meet expectations for creating and protecting jobs, President Obama and other officials continue to claim that the Stimulus has "created or saved" 150,000 jobs and will create or save an additional 600,000 in the next 100 days. These claims create concern because they are contradicted by available information and the Administration, mysteriously, refuses to make public the formula used for calculations.

In their letter to the President, six Republican leaders on the House Oversight Committee take specific issue with the "jobs saved" claim, which no government agency, private sector group, or research economist has any idea how to reliably calculate and track. "The creation of a metric that is not measurable allows your administration to advance job claims that are not subject to public scrutiny," the Members write. "This clever creation is a convenient vehicle for avoiding accountability." The letter asks for the President to provide a "full and complete explanation of the methodology and data used to compute your claim of 150,000 jobs created or saved to date, as well as your claim that 600,000 jobs will be created or saved this summer."

On January 10, 2009, the office of Vice President-Elect Joe Biden released a document, "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." The Obama Administration predicted that without passage of the Economic Stimulus, the unemployment rate could reach 9.2% or 13.9 million jobs. By passing the Economic Stimulus proposal, the Administration claimed unemployment would not exceed 8%.

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