So, since it cannot be proven, than my assertion that it didn't really work cannot be disproven. However, we were told that it would stimulate the economy, create jobs and put us back on the road to recovery. Did it stimulate the economy, NO. Did it create Jobs, Yes, but we kept losing more than it created, did it put us back on the Road to recovery? I doubt it since recovery was faster in some areas that didn't even take the money. And some areas the economy never really fell all that much either.
What he did wrong was, he set it to last a set time period, that means contractors who tied up their equipment on it could not finish early and move to another job.
He did it through contractors, a contractor is a business and must make a profit and in non-right-to-work states, they are influenced by the Unions. In some of these Union States, probably a lot of them, the jobs were seasonal. That is one problem with "infrastructure" jobs, they are subject to the weather and except for a few of the southern states, those jobs all halt for the winter. Because the jobs stop or are hit and miss during the winter, the companies "lay off" employees until in spring when the work can continue. That way the workers get unemployment benefits during the winter when they cannot work.
The problem, in some areas, was that the Union had a lot of control of who got hired. So instead of the same worker keeping the same job for the entire time and actually earning money to put back into the economy, the Unions rotated out workers, once someone got enough time in for unemployment, they would go onto unemployment and another worker would take their place to get his/her unemployment updated. Even with this system, some, still lost their houses and a lot more because unemployment wasn't enough to update how far they were behind. In the end, no one actually had any extra money to put back into the economy.
The biggest mistake he made was trying to force states to change their unemployment laws in order to accept it. This caused the stimulus to go to some but not to others, and if you want to stimulate the whole economy, you have to stimulate everywhere. Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma (even with a Dem Gov.) rejected it. Texas is a very large and populous state, at the time, unemployment in Texas was around 6%, maybe a bit lower, California's unemployment rate was 12%, the stimulus package was only offing $500 million (if I remember correctly) from the federal government to prop up unemployment benefits. The catch being that the state had to give unemployment benefits to not only those who had paid into the fund, but those who didn't and even those who came in from out of state. With it's size, that could of bankrupted the state in a matter of months. How many of those in Cali would of headed to Texas or other low unemployment areas if they could still keep drawing unemployment benefits? Great for Cali, since they no longer have to pay out, but bad for wherever they went to, because now that state had to pay them.
Yes, I got that they came from BLS. But I was pointing out that any claim made on these numbers is a guess. Nobody knows how many jobs actually exist in the US. Didn't find real current stats, but one site
Illegal Immigration Facts & Statistics says 7.7 million employed illegals in the US in 2008, that number also is just a guess, nobody knows absolutes. So, in 2008, there were 7.7 million jobs that could of been held by Americans. Some of them would undoubtedly disappear because the employer may not be willing or able to pay minimum wage. Now also consider that those illegals are costing the US an approximated $113 Billion a year. I don't know if that figure includes lost tax revenue or only layouts.
So BLS, nor anyone else can accurately tell us how many jobs are actually out there. Therefore, it is impossible to prove whether or not there is actually more or less jobs than there are unemployed. Also, they cannot predict how many jobs would come into existence if all the jobs were filled.
