Stimulus Math

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.

That's from a Wall Street Journal blog, The Washington Wire, telling the story behind 9 of the 640,329 jobs the Obama Administration claims the stimulus has created. According to the Administration's stimulus webpage, these jobs are directly reported by recipients of stimulus money, so it's no fuzzy estimate. The stimulus requires certain recipients to:

... [R]eport the number of jobs saved or created by these funds. These recipient reports include not only newly created jobs, but also the “saved” jobs of workers who, in the absence of the Recovery Act funds, would have been laid off.

So, when the Army Corps of Engineers used $889.60 of stimulus money to buy nine pairs of work boots from Moore, he was required to fill out a report for Recovery.gov:

“The paperwork was unreal,” said Moore, who added that he tried to figure out how to file the forms online, then gave up and asked his daughter to help.

Paula Moore-Kirby, 42 years old, had less trouble with the Web site, but 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.

... “The question, I would like to know is: How do you answer that? Did we create zero? Is it creating a job because they have boots and go out and work for the Corps? I would be really curious to hear how somebody does create a job. The formula is out there for anyone to create, and it’s just so difficult,” she said.