The Obama Stimulus: Month 16 Progress Report

The media present each monthly jobs report as a stand-alone event.  But we put them in context as progress reports on the Obama “stimulus” or  recovery act, jammed through Congress in the third week of his Administration.

The explicit promise made by President Obama and Democrats in Congress to sell the stimulus was that borrowing and spending an extra $787 Billion plus interest would result in immediate job growth.  In Obama’s own words the stimulus would:

Immediately jumpstart job creation and long term growth.

The May Jobs report showed 431,000 more jobs than in April, a huge number that would normally indicate strong economic growth ahead.  Obama tried to work up some enthusiasm in a speech to truck drivers:

This report is a sign that our economy is getting stronger by the day.

But the details muted reaction from Wall Street and even the pro-Obama media.  It turns out that 96% of the new jobs logged in May were federal government jobs.  And almost all of those were temporary, part-time, Census jobs.

This chart shows the number of jobs in America each month since the stimulus was enacted.

Even though the instant job creation Obama promised did not materialize, it does appear that some job growth began in January, a year after the stimulus was enacted.  Obama and the Democrats have tried to retroactively revise their original promises and claim that this is the result they intended all along.  Today he said:

…what these numbers do mean is that we are moving in the right direction and the economic policies we put in place are working.

However, it turns out that even the year-late, five-month increase in jobs is less than meets the eye.  The next chart shows the numbers with federal jobs stripped out.

The government has hired about 550,000 part time census workers since December.  Virtually all these folks will be cut lose by September.  Thus, if private sector job creation over the next five months equals the last five months, there will be a net loss of 50,000 jobs.