CBO Credits Stimulus Package With Major Job Creation

The independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reports today that President Obama's economic recovery package created up to 2.1 million jobs in the fourth quarter on 2009.

During the fourth quarter of 2009, the stimulus added "between 1.0 million and 2.1 million to the number of workers employed in the United States," the CBO said.

The stimulus also boosted the country's economic growth by 1.5 to 3.5 percent during the time period and lowered the nation's unemployment rate by between 0.5 and 1.1 percentage points.

In the report, the CBO noted that economic growth in 2009 was worse than they had predicted at the time that the stimulus was enacted, but that was due to a weaker economy than originally expected, rather than any failings of the stimulus. [...]

The CBO also said that in the fourth quarter the stimulus package increased the number of full-time jobs by between 1.4 and 3 million compared to the number of jobs that would have existed without the package.