What The Stimulus Actually Meant For Jobs And Econonomic Growth

2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, (Stimulus) was an $800 Billion spending boondoggle.  A veritable New Deal style, government spending binge, Obama instituted shortly after becoming the 44th President of the United States, according to many Washington pundits.

Independent studies of the stimulus point to another conclusion...

U.S. economy has largely benefited from the stimulus and other measures enacted by government agencies like Ben Bernake and the Fed.  Read to the bottom for a comparison to Europe's approach.

Effects of The Stimulus.  


Stimulus Unemployment Facts


According to many sources, including non partisan CBO Congressional Budget Office, 2.5 million people would not have a job without the unprecedented stimulus passed early 2009... some economists have upward of 3.3 million jobs added from the effects of stimulus.

As evidenced by the the chart to the left, these stimulative measures worked.   They worked in an environment of lackluster demand by consumers.

Keynesian economists and liberals would argue the interventions ended too soon.  They cite shaky footing private businesses have experienced through massive deleveraging by consumers and private industry.

Stimulus In Action

Here are several noticeable measures few noticed but nearly everyone benefited from the stimulus:

• Tax cuts for 95% of American workers.
• GM bailout (thousands of jobs saved).
• Substantial state government aid...
• prevent Medicaid cuts
• prevent teacher layoffs
• prevent unemployment benefits from expiring
• enable food stamps additional funding
• general assistance for citizens hit hardest by the recession

Eurozone Unemployment

Austerity measures have widely been pushed onto neighboring countries by German economic leaders and enforced throughout the Eurozone countries' economies.  Predictably, Germany is doing well.  Youth unemployment is the lowest in the Eurozone and maybe the world.  They got theirs and look at enacting self serving nationalistic policy versus multinational policy needed to save the Eurozone and their common currency, the Euro.

Many liberals in the U.S. have complained there hasn't been enough stimulus and they would be right.  Just compare the Eurozone unemployment numbers to U.S. unemployment in the chart below.

The unemployment numbers speak loudly whose policy has been the most effective for reducing unemployment.

Eurozone unemployment is 3% more than in the U.S.  A big difference equating to millions who have a job versus millions who are homeless.

Source:  US Monthly Jobs Changes Chart