I was intrigued by the projection of 7500 new jobs for New York's North Country that was included in one of the many recent stories about the massive federal stimulus plan.That number apparently was drawn from a White House fact sheet that estimated the number of new jobs for each of the nation's 435 Congressional districts (and the District of Columbia).
The fact sheet was based, in turn, on a (slightly dated and widely speculative) study by two economists on the Obama-Biden team and, according to the White House, "detailed estimates of the working age population, employment, and industrial composition by district."
According to this "detailed estimate," every single Congressional district in every single state will see somewhere in the range of 7,000-8,000 new jobs.
Exceptions include Utah, whose three CDs will each see exactly 10,600 new jobs, and Rhode Island, at the lower end of the spectrum, whose two CDs will each see exactly 6,000 jobs.
The nation's journalists gobbled up the handy statistics, dutifully reporting the prospective new jobs as if they were guaranteed, apparently without seeing this rather substantial caveat from the study's authors:
It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error. There is the obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling a hypothetical package rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress. But, there is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity.That's some disclaimer, and it screams out for just a touch of journalistic skepticism.
But putting aside disbelief over the accuracy and even the "roundness" of the "detailed estimate," a closer look at the types of new jobs the authors predict is even more disconcerting.
More than a quarter-million new jobs will be in government. Of the rest, the bulk--1.2 million--are to be created in two sectors--retail, and tourism/hospitality--that the authors concede employ "large numbers" of low-income workers with stagnant wages.
Unfortunately, these job numbers are not broken out by CD, but only represent national numbers.
Economic stimulus or Band-Aid? It will take some time to sort this one out.
