Workin' the Recovery.gov Stats

On Thursday, the Recovery Board published the first spending reports on Recovery.gov from companies that received stimulus contracts before Sept. 30. The resulting media attention has the White House scrambling to explain why so few jobs have been created after spending so much taxpayer money.

According to the site, to date more than $16 billion in contracts have been awarded by agencies, resulting in the creation of more than 30,000 jobs. That adds up to about $500,000 a job. Ahem.

Recovery Board spokesman Ed Pound pointed out to me, however, that the $16 billion figure reflects the amount of money awarded, most of which has not yet reached the contractors. If you adjust for the amount of money that's already been disbursed, you come up with a more reasonable figure of about $70,000 per job, which corresponds with initial estimates.

But critics are unhappy with the slow pace of job creation and the White House is standing behind its assertion that the Recovery Act has already saved or created more than 1 million jobs. Pound said the release of data from stimulus grant recipients on Oct. 30 will give a much more complete picture of the number of jobs saved or created. Of course if that figure doesn't come close to 1 million, the Democrats may find themselves in a sticky political situation.

The administration's argument is that stimulus contract money, which was mostly spent on infrastructure projects, will take longer to demonstrate a positive effect on the economy because of the lengthy process that takes place between awarding a contract and actually hiring people to begin the work. That idea seems backed by reports that many stimulus construction projects are just getting underway. If anything the low jobs figure seems encouraging, because it shows contractors are taking the reporting requirements very seriously rather than succumbing to political pressure and exaggerating the number of jobs created or saved.

The grant money on the other hand mostly has been used to plug gaps in state and local government budgets to maintain levels of service in the face of declining revenues. The administration is banking on a big jump next month in the number of jobs saved thanks to a large number of cops, teachers and other civic employees who may have otherwise been let go without Recovery Act funds.

Regardless, if the jobs number doesn't jump significantly in the next couple months it may be time to start questioning the structure of the stimulus, if not it's overall success. When the bill was still under debate, Democrats repeatedly asserted that priority would be given to "shovel-ready" projects to get stimulus funds out the door as quickly as possible. But eight months after the bill's passage, less than 20 percent of the money has been paid out. In fact, 31 percent of the contracts that have been awarded haven't even begun work yet.

This is undoubtedly due to the complexity of the federal procurement process, but it's fair to ask if lawmakers should have taken that into account when they wrote the bill. With arguments for a second stimulus already making the rounds, it's worth keeping in mind that we haven't even come close to spending the first one yet.