February 13, 2009
NYC Letter: Awesome Arithmetic Redux
Day 25 of CHOPE
The numbers are the message. If they don't add up -- can't possibly add up -- that is because the message is so awesome that awesome arithmetic must be applied.
PROJECTED JOBS NUMBERS DON'T QUITE ADD UP
February 12, 2009 (Politico) - A White House estimate of the number of jobs stimulus legislation will create includes some sharp discrepancies between state and local jobs claims.Those differences -- which the document suggests are large rounding errors -- was spotted by the office of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor [R-VA, 7th]... It comes as the White House is seeking to define the stimulus package as a jobs bill, and to focus locally on the jobs it will create.
... A White House spokesman didn't immediately respond to a question about the differences.
A spokesman for Cantor, Brad Dayspring, emails:
How there could be a rounding error in places like Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, or Washington, D.C., where there is exactly 1 state and 1 congressional district that encompass the exact same area and population?
The difference between the total states estimate (3,388,000 jobs) and the total districts estimate (3,458,900 jobs) is 107,900 jobs. If at year's end you are still unemployed you doubtless have been hired for one of the 107,900 rounding error jobs.
CHOPE.
It's a three-letter word. Jobs. J-O-B-S.
It will be interesting to see what increases in jobs, if any, will result from this "stimulus" package. Studies of job "creation" during the New Deal show that, while there were some new jobs created and disappeared as soon as the spending stopped, most "new" jobs were filled by transference. That is, people left an existing job to move to a government sponsored job for better pay. This allowed companies to scale down payrolls through attrition. Thus, fewer new jobs were created than claimed. This kept wages artificially high and slowed private sector employment growth. Since Obama is an Orthodox Keynesian, it is likely that the same phenomenon will occur this time around...history repeating itself? Who could imagine?
Posted by: Duncan at February 14, 2009 03:59 PM
