Posted: Thursday, October 29, 2009
Oregon and Washington are revising their estimates for how
many jobs are being created by the Obama administration’s stimulus
plan. In a report today, The Associated Press questioned the job
creation tallies by federal agencies. State governments used the
same methodology earlier this month. Salem Correspondent Chris
Lehman has more.
Nailing down data like this is tricky. A few weeks ago, the state of
Oregon reported that federal stimulus money created or retained
the equivalent of 8,000 full-time jobs. Now, Courtney Warner
Crowell of the Governor’s Economic Recovery Team says that
number is being revised downward by about 400 jobs.
Crowell: “Being able to deal with the sheer amount of data that
came through…I think we learned how to handle that and make
adjustments.”
Crowell says changes were made due to revised federal definitions
and in some cases, typos that were spotted. She says the reviews
started long before the AP article, which focused on federal
contracts, not money funneled through state governments.
Meanwhile, in Washington state, officials acknowledged they had
overstated the number of full-time education jobs saved by stimulus
money. They now say the federal cash saved 5,000 school jobs, not
24,000 as previously stated.
Copyright 2009 OPB
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