We Don't Have A Clue What We're Doing, But We're Certain It's Accurate

There's a ton of red meat to dissect in this Politico story:

White House officials announced Friday that they had counted exactly how many jobs were created or saved by recent stimulus spending: 640,329.

So how many were saved and how many created? They don't know.

In a briefing with reporters, officials acknowledged they can't tell the difference between jobs "saved," and jobs "created" by the $787 billion stimulus package.

They said they also can't tell the difference between private sector jobs and government jobs.

Um...okay.  So, they're certain they 'created or saved' exactly 640,329 jobs, but can't say how many of those are saved and how many of those are created.  Putting aside the asinine notion that anyone can count a 'saved' job for the moment -- if you could, wouldn't Obama be able to say, based on 10% unemployment, that he's 'saved' around 300 million jobs...? -- they also can't say if those jobs are government jobs or non-government jobs.  And yet, they're just really darned certain there are 640,329 of them.

But rest assured, all is hunkey-dorey:

Jared Bernstein, the chief economist and senior economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, said he is confident that the stimulus bill "saved or created over a million jobs, and we're on track to save or create the 3.5 million jobs we estimated over the life of the recovery act."

And, he conceded, "there's no data element in any government data set that is absolutely precise."

Bernstein arrived at the 1 million number by extrapolating from the portion of recovery act funds for which the recipients were required to report jobs figures to the total amount allocated so far. The spending categories that required reporting were state fiscal support for education, private workers hired on federal contracts, and many grants to non-profits and local governments.

Once again, the key here is to realize exactly how they're 'creating' or 'saving' those jobs.  They're not actually counting jobs, they're simply doing long division according to a political formula.  They allocated $787 billion and thought that it would 'create or save' 3.5 million jobs.  Thus, after X% of the money has been spent, they say that Y thousands of jobs have been 'created or saved'.  That's it, period.  Any fourth grader could do this uber-complex math.  So, naturally, they're right on track.

Speaking of complex math, how about this:

As of September 30, the White House said, $340 billion in funds and tax cuts had been obligated. Recipients of $159 billion of that were required to report jobs figures. And it was that $159 billion that generated the 640,329 "saved or created" jobs, officials said.

That boils down to a cost per job of $92,000, Bernstein said.

Um...what?  By my calculator, that equals $248,309 and change per job.  I guess the math is complex, at least inside Washington.  Still, this next part is very interesting:

...for all the detail, he said that the data do not show whether the jobs are in the government or in the private sector. That's because, he said, much of the money was sent to states, which in turn hired a mix of contractors and government employees to carry out tasks. Bernstein said that the White House's earlier estimate that 90 percent of the jobs would be in the private sector, though, is "still valid."

Translation: we don't have a clue what we're doing, but we're certain it's accurate.

Speaking of accuracy...

The federal government sent Bob Bray $26,174 in stimulus aid to fix a fence and replace the roofs on public apartments in Blooming Grove, Texas, a town of fewer than 900 people outside Dallas. He hired five roofers and an inspector to do the job.

But the number of jobs he reported to the government looked very different — 450 jobs.

He said that he told the government that he had created six jobs but that a federal official told him that wasn't right. So he reported the number of hours the roofers worked instead. The Department of Housing and Urban Development caught the mistake, but he couldn't fix it before the jobs figures were published. "The money was great, but the reports are really confusing," he said. "I've been fighting with it for over a month and a half."

USA TODAY reviewed the reports to determine the number of jobs created or saved per stimulus dollar. The review found 14 recipients that reported saving or creating more than 100 jobs for less than $1,500 per job — suggesting they overreported the number of jobs. Those included:

•The police department in Plymouth, Conn., claimed in its report that a $15,355 grant used to buy new computers had created or saved 108 jobs. The department had 22 law enforcement officers last year, according to the FBI. Mayor Vincent Festa said that the town has resorted to "counting paper clips" to save money but that it had no plans to lay off any of its police officers, even without the stimulus. He said he could not explain the report, and the town's police chief did not return telephone calls Monday.

•The Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, which employs about 500 people in its Head Start preschool program, reported creating or saving 935 jobs with about $1.3 million in funding. Beverly Wise, the group's fiscal officer, said she followed the advice of federal officials to come up with the number. "I thought it was high," Wise said of the number she reported, adding that the process was confusing. The group is using its stimulus money to give a 1.84% pay raise to its employees and pay for other needs such as playground equipment and training for the teachers who serve 2,300 low-income children.

•Teach for America, which helps place recent graduates in teaching jobs in urban and rural districts, reported that a $2 million grant created or saved 1,425 jobs. Spokeswoman Kerci Marcello Stroud said officials used that money to pay part of the salaries of 125 employees; a separate $6 million allowed it to expand the training program to include 1,300 more graduates.

Also:

The Obama administration announced Friday that federal stimulus money had created or saved about 7,200 education jobs in Ohio as of Sept. 30.

Although a couple of hundred of those jobs were in Columbus City Schools, the district acknowledged yesterday that many of the "saved" jobs definitely wouldn't have been lost in the first place, and others might not have been lost at all. …

So was the district on the verge of laying off 36 school administrators?

"No," Dannemiller said, explaining that the reporting choices were "created" and "saved."  "They weren't 'created,' obviously, so our only other choice was 'saved.'  "

So, what's really happening here is that anyone who received stimulus money is being forced to make up numbers of jobs that were 'created' or 'saved', even if neither actually happened.

Welcome to the Obama era, where accuracy and transparency is the name of the game.

There's my two cents.