Inquiring minds are asking the question "How many jobs were created out of the various stimulus programs so far and at what cost per job?"



That is a good question. Not that we can believe the reported number of jobs created, but let's assume for the sake of argument that the figures provided by the administration are correct.



White House Hails Stimulus Jobs



The Financial Times is reporting White House hails 650,000 stimulus jobs.

The US economic stimulus programme has directly created or saved 640,000 jobs so far, the White House said on Friday as it battled to find ways to show that its $787bn package was working, despite persistently high unemployment.



Data this week showed that the US economy had started to grow again but the Obama administration has faced rising criticism that it wasted taxpayers' money on the stimulus.



The White House tried to counter this by championing the jobs figures and even uploading videos to its website showing the dollars in action. The figures showed around half of the jobs were in education and 12.5 per cent were in construction.



"These reports are strong confirmation that…we are on-track to create and save 3.5m jobs through the Recovery Act by the end of next year," said Joe Biden, vice president.



But criticism has mounted this week over the accuracy of some preliminary stimulus data released by the White House. Even the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank which has fervently supported the stimulus, said there were serious problems with the figures.



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