You Can Officially Ignore All Future Administration Jobs Numbers
Because when they defend this practice, they put themselves on record that they have absolutely no integrity in the process:
About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved....
But officials defended the practice of counting raises as saved jobs.
"If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job," HHS spokesman Luis Rosero said....
More than 250 other community agencies in the U.S. similarly reported saving jobs when using the money to give pay raises, to pay for training and continuing education, to extend employee work hours or to buy equipment, according to their spending reports.
Uh, right. So does this mean that the Administration's pay Czar is destroying jobs by reducing salaries? Seems like one would have to take this position to be consistent. And wasn't, by the same logic, AIG actually creating jobs with the now-infamous bonuses earlier this year?
And by the way, it seems like those ACORN-like community organizers are returning the favors Obama has extended them by applying to the jobs reporting system their famously rigorous accounting standards they bring to their own finances as well as to voter registration .
Other tidbits from the article are also priceless:
President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.
There is also another impression one gets from the article, other than seeing all the fraud, they is not highlighted by the reporter -- all of the jobs created seem to be government bureaucrat jobs or community group jobs. Not one example of jobs actually producing something someone is willing to buy. Except maybe for this example:
How did Kentucky shoe store owner Buddy Moore save nine jobs with just $889.60 in federal stimulus money? He didn't, and that's turning into a big headache for him.
Moore's store in Campbellsville, Ky., filed one of 156,614 reports from recipients of stimulus dollars designed to show how money from the $787 billion program is being spent, and how many jobs the funds have created or saved.
Moore's slice of the stimulus came in an $889.60 order from the Army Corps of Engineers for nine pairs of work boots for a stimulus project....
Paula Moore-Kirby...couldn't work out how to answer the question about how many jobs her father had created or saved. She couldn't leave it blank, either, she said. After several calls to a helpline for recipients she came away with the impression that she would hear back if there was a problem with her response, and have a chance to correct it. So with 15 minutes to go before the reporting deadline, she sent in her answer: nine jobs, because her father helped nine members of the Corps to work.
Not Sure:
"President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there."
This makes perfect sense if you accept that "giving a raise" = "saving a job". After all, if giving a person a raise of $X saves one job, then giving a person a raise of 1.84 x $X would save 1.84 (935 / 508, from above quote) jobs.
November 4, 2009, 1:35 pmTF:
What?
If you accept that giving a raise is saving a portion of a job then about 9 jobs were "saved" if 508 people got a 1.84% pay raise (508 * .0184). The idea has no merit, in my view, but at least they could bother to do the math right.
November 4, 2009, 2:38 pmMatt:
And I'm sure when people have their hours cut the Obama administration uses that to balance added hours and "parts of jobs."
November 4, 2009, 3:25 pmgn:
Just goes to prove that any statistics based on surveys or the like are useless.
Focus on withholding taxes, sales tax receipts, corporate income taxes, and so on if you want to see the true trend.. and it is, of course, dismal.
November 4, 2009, 3:27 pmMaddog:
Paula is one sharp cookie. If her good ol' dad can save or create 9 jobs with less than $900 it stands to reason when the money gets tight that Obama will be sending big bucks his way to really get some job growth going in the US of A.
So if my rough math is right and we need one million jobs we should send ol' Buddy about $100,000,000. But why stop there let's send ol' Buddy $100,000,000 every year. Job growth would be huge, off the charts huge. With all those employees making all that money from all those jobs we would be swimming in money.
I think that was the thought process behind this whole idea. Sigh.
November 4, 2009, 3:53 pmBillS:
So if there were 9 pairs of boots, for $900.00 you take the cost of materials or cost of stocking the boots and subtract it from teh $900. Let's say this leave $500. You then take one employee's salary say $25,000 and divide the $500 by $25,000 and that's the number of employee jobs you've saved (given that you are operating without any actual profits for this sale - since it's for the government and all profits are evil if paid by the government
November 4, 2009, 7:39 pmat best this means those 9 boots saved what about .02 jobs... of course if you need to pass the $400 in original cost onto your vendors so they can take the time to determine their cost of the boots and you should determine how much time you lost computing all of this which goes at the hourly rate of your accountant vs. your sales/manufacturing team (and your accountant possibly makes more than the sales team) but the truth is out there...
BillS:
One more thing regarding raises - actually these isn't just not job creation it means jobs lost. One report said that experienced people might quit if not given raises.... thus when the Stimulus dollars were offered these people should have been encouraged to quit. You could then have hired unemployed people off the street for less than you were paying those experienced whiners and not only would you be able to replace the employee who quit, but you could have combined the savings in wages from your obviously overpaid employees with the stimulus dollars to actually create another low paying job - thus putting more people to work for poverty wages.
November 4, 2009, 7:45 pmBillS:
Sorry on that first sentence I sound almost illiterate... should have read closer to:
November 4, 2009, 7:46 pm"Actually these raises don't just fail to create jobs, they represent jobs lost."
Brad K.:
I am astounded the real horror of this story hasn't been pointed out.
Buddy Moore got an order from the Army Corps of Engineers. That was considered "stimulus" money - he had to fill out reports on it. This is an example of Obama and his henchmen attaching their influence - in the sense of the traditional protection racket - into Buddy Moore's shoe store in Campbellsville, Kentucky.
Apparently, the stimulus payouts are being used as a clandestine, not to say gangster-like, means of grabbing control of private businesses. Now Buddy Moore's shoe store is beholden to the government; they are demanding their pound of flesh. Paula Moore-Kirby perjured herself to avoid the implied threats of the government. The correct answer of "zero jobs created or saved" was obviously, by the instructions, unacceptable.
The way reporting requirements were imposed, along with the order, and the aggressive and intimidating stance of the government are the real story here.
November 4, 2009, 7:59 pmSameer Parekh:
Another thing that is interesting about the Buddy Boots story is the amount of time that was wasted filling out the stupid form. Multiple calls to the helpline? How long did she spend figuring out how to fill out that form? That time could have been used productively, instead it was used to fill out a stupid government form.
November 4, 2009, 9:06 pmBob Smith:
More than 250 other community agencies in the U.S. similarly reported saving jobs when using the money to give pay raises, to pay for training and continuing education, to extend employee work hours
This is strikingly dangerous. I'd bet most of these people work under civil service rules that prohibit pay and benefit cuts, regardless of how they're funded. What happens when the stimulus money runs out? The local government gets crushed by their big new payroll obligations, requiring either big staff cuts (if that's even possible under the civil service rules in effect) or big tax increases to pay for our new overclass.
November 5, 2009, 1:30 amMikeL:
I am real sure that I heard President Obama and Vice President Biden say that they created (or saved) a pant load of jobs at least three times. As most people know, if you say the same LIE at least three times than the lie becomes the truth.
November 5, 2009, 6:47 amDavid Zetland:
Awesome post. Orwell would be proud!
November 5, 2009, 9:39 amjay:
How long did she spend figuring out how to fill out that form? That time could have been used productively, instead it was used to fill out a stupid government form.
ahhh ... employees are needed to fill out the forms and to collect and tally the forms... jobs created!!!
November 5, 2009, 10:39 ambobby b:
"And I’m sure when people have their hours cut the Obama administration uses that to balance added hours and “parts of jobs.â€"
- - - -
As it appears that our stimulus money primarily stimulated government employment, and as hours are NEVER cut for government employees, they'll never need to worry about this.
At some point in the future, you'll have hordes of shocked and panicking government employees surrounding the dead body of the one guy who had still been performing actual productive non-governmental work, screaming that he can't die, because they have a CONTRACT! . . . .
November 5, 2009, 6:49 pm