Life is good for the federal government when they can make up whatever numbers they want to track the success of their stimulus money.  In an article which is making its way arond the news, it appears that the stimulus has created or saved around 650,000 jobs.  Though that sounds impressive, I am forced to wonder exactly what we have gotten for our money.

The new data released late Friday represents 156,614 federal contracts, grants and loans awarded to more than 62,000 state and local governments, companies, school districts, universities, non-profits worth a total of $215 billion.

So, that means 650,000 jobs were created on the basis of $215 billion in government spending.  Using simple division, that means each job cost the US government — and us, the taxpayers who are footing the bill –$330,769.23 per job.

Now, while $330k may sound like a pretty small sum of money to Wall Street tycoons, members of Congress, and the lovely Mr. Madoff, that is a rather large sum of money for the average American.  Recalling that the stimulus money was (supposedly) aimed at construction oriented infrastructure projects make the money per job seem even more excessive.  Even at union wages, I’ve never heard of a construction worker who makes that kind of money.

So where on earth is it all going?

Tags: spending, stimulus