Report: Stimulus Saves, Creates 87,700 Fla. Jobs

FLORIDIANS:

Is this for REAL?!?!?!?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9637422

"It credits 25,186 full-time-equivalent jobs directly to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act although 53,772 workers benefited."

I didn't "qualify" for the jobs being offered (sigh)

Sure it's for real, but it's a drop in the bucket. There are over a million unemployed now in Florida.

I think I might respectfully question these numbers. From a Federal perspective, there have been many reports on the convoluted way that "saved" jobs are calculated. Firstly "saved" jobs is a nebulous term to begin with. You could say anbody that has maintained their employment through this down cycle has a "saved" job. But that aside, the Feds count a pay raise for teachers for example as a saved job. Other investigations revealed the Fed numbers were found to include jobs saved in zip codes and Congressional districts that dont exist.

Could there be created or saved jobes in Florida as a result of the ARRA stimulus? Probably, for example there is a local road here that is being repaved as a result of stimulus money. I guess you could count those workers as jobs created or saved. (I would argue that the road would of got paved anyway at some point, and I'll bet the construction company used its existing work force to ececute the contract, but that is speculation on my part)

Now, could our benevolent Uncle Charlie have sifted thru these numbers and gleaned out actual jobs created or saved in Florida? Maybe

A lot of those numbers issues have been straightened out after some investigative reporters exposed them, like those missing zip codes and all. And I knew from the get-go that a lot of the jobs promised by the stimulus money would be in the category of "saved" jobs, especially for critical workers like police, firefighters, etc. So I never expected massive employment from that package. And I wouldn't argue that the jobs that were saved shouldn't have been; it would have been worse for the economy without those jobs, even the ones that got cut in half, half being better than nothing as we all here know very well.

My big beef with ARRA was not the job count per se, but the original package that had so many things in it that had absolutely nothing to do with an immediate STIMULUS to the economy, wasn't that the whole point, duh, to create an immediate kick to the economic tires! They should have done a whole lot more for unemployment benefits, not just that wacky fed to state "incentive" that proved to be such a mess, and actual jobs programs, not just construction. If I remember correctly (not sure), Obama wanted even more money in there for green jobs, but oh no, we had to find all these little pet projects for senators who had been waiting for years to stick them into such a bill. Good grief.

scram--as much as we seriously disagree about many issues, I think we can agree that there needs to be a fundamental change in the way legislation is approached in Congress. Some want less government, some want more, some just want smarter government, but we really don't need this mentality of "bringing home the bacon" for particular state projects so that senators can put their names on them and that are going to eventually bankrupt the country because of the missed opportunities of such inefficient ways of trying to repair our country.

Cant argue with you on having less Pork Nancy, but as long as we are using meat analigies, my Beef with the
"saved jobs" to the extent there are any, is that most of them seem to be government jobs. Im scratching my head as to why all of our former employers had to downsize in order to size themselves with the realities of the economy, yet most municipalities seemed to have not downsized over the same time frame. They sure had no problem growing their head counts while riding the Meaty increase of tax dollars they gleaned from the real estate bubble, in fact my local government even found the funds to buy billboard space to advocate voting against ammendment 1 that reduced property taxes back in '06. (and then they had the nerve to raise millage rates last year so they could maintain their cushy tax revenues).

I guess as a taxpayer I would add to my list of gripes that when local governments found themselves in a corner and were about to embark on a arguable healthy bout of downsizing recently, Uncle Fed came in with our (borrowed) tax dollars and disincentivized them from doing so. On top of that, as taxpayers, we are funding lifetime pension benefits for many of these "saved' employees.

I guess its good Bacon if one is part of the government work force complex that can bring it home.......

Im afraid Im not a member of that club.

Pork, beef, bacon...im hungry

Good discussion here