But when looking at these reports, it’s important to know what you are seeing – especially when it comes to the roughly 670,000 jobs recipients reported last quarter as part of this process.

Just 20 Percent of Spending

While there is already an unprecedented amount of public information available on Recovery.gov, Congress asked that for a portion of spending - specifically in areas like infrastructure projects and education spending – we go a layer deeper and collect these reports directly from recipients on how they are putting Recovery Act dollars to work.  So while these new reports posted today offer an extraordinary level of detail, they only cover about 20 percent of Recovery Act spendingto-date.  That means the job counts that come with the reports don’t include things like:

• jobs from Recovery Act tax relief, including significant business tax grants being used to fund clean energy manufacturing projects across the country
• jobs from Recovery Act aid like Pell Grantsand food assistance (some of the biggest and most direct job creators because the money is quickly put back into the economy)
• jobs from Recovery Act small business loans

Only Salaries Directly Paid with Recovery Dollars

Second, keep in mind that recipients are only required to report on the jobs where salaries are being directly paid using Recovery Act dollars – not the overall job impact of their project.  So that means the job counts don’t include things like:

• jobs created further down the supply chain by a Recovery Act project.  For example, new hires at a plant supplying asphalt for Recovery Act road projects or new hires at a wind blade manufacturing plant supplying a Recovery Act wind farm.
• jobs created at businesses benefiting from Recovery Act projects.  For example, the fast food worker hired because of the growing lunch rush due to a Recovery Act project underway across the street.

Doesn’t Include Jobs from New Education Funding

Third, while it’s clear from these reports that the Recovery Act is still supporting hundreds of thousands of education jobs nationwide, it’s no longer the only initiative funding education jobs.  This summer, as states continued to deal with ongoing budget shortfalls, the Administration worked with Congress to secure additional education funding through the Education Jobs Bill.  States are just beginning to put those new funds to work as their Recovery Act education funding winds down and we expect to see a ramp-up in jobs reported as a result of the Bill in the months ahead – but the jobs created or saved from the Education Jobs Bill are not included in these reports.

Honest Efforts, But Not Perfect

And finally, keep in mind that these are no ordinary government-released reports.  They come directly from the recipients of Recovery dollars themselves -- people like local government employees, community organization administrators and small business owners who don’t count jobs for a living.  While these are honest efforts to be as accurate as possible, we know they’re not perfect.  But they are an important part of our continued commitment to providing unprecedented accountability and transparency of the Recovery Act at work.

So with all of that said, just how many jobs is the Recovery Act responsible for?  According to leading independent economists, when you account for the full job impact of the Recovery Act – including direct, indirect and induced jobs – and factor in every dollar of spending – including tax relief and aid to individuals, the Recovery Act is actually responsible for about 3 million jobs nationwide.  (To see what that means for your state, check out page 49 of this report.) 

We’re continuing to work every day to create even more jobs - but it’s clear from these new reports that Recovery Act investments are having a meaningful impact for families and communities across the country.

Ed DeSeve is Special Advisor to the President for Recovery Implementation

Two-thirds of Recovery Act funds are in tax cuts and relief payments. These funds were designed to be spent over time, generally over a two year period. Recovery Act tax cuts show up in each paycheck, people on extended unemployment get their benefits weekly, and so on. In reports and on Recovery.gov, the tax cuts and relief funds not yet paid out appear to be “unspent,” creating some confusion. But these tax cuts and relief checks are moving out as planned, on time, and on track. They aren’t “unspent” – people are expecting to get their tax cuts or their unemployment checks – they just haven’t been paid out yet.

The other one-third is the $265 billion for projects. When people talk about “unspent” Recovery Act funds, this is usually where they focus. But here too, the critics are missing the point. 

• About $215 billion is under contract and agreement (“under contract”). For over 80% of the project funds, our Recovery Act team in Washington has done everything we need to do in order to allow work to begin – projects are approved, plans are final, contracts are signed. In this category, the vast majority of these projects are underway (some are even finished already). For example, all $27 billion in highway funds have been obligated and already, almost 40,000 miles of roadways are being improved. 
• Another approximately $25 billion has been awarded, but isn’t under contract yet: In this category, covering about 10% of project funds, the recipients already know they are getting funding -- often after winning in a competitive application process -- but final legal contracts aren’t yet done.  This is often the case for parts of the Recovery Act designed to fuel long-term economic growth. High Speed Rail is an example: all $8 billion of these funds are awarded, meaning that states are working with freight railways and others, but until these plans are finalized, contracts aren’t signed. 
• The final $25 billion is in the process of being awarded. One of the great things about the Recovery Act is that it is free from earmarks and many of its programs are competitive – meaning we pick the best projects to get funded. Picking good projects takes time, but even this is nearly complete. Take broadband as an example: approximately half of these funds have been already awarded, and the remainder will be within the next 60 days from applications that have already been received. Selections are still ongoing for our “Race to the Top” education reform funding, and for research grants at the National Institutes of Health. These funds are “unspent,” but all around America the businesses, researchers, and schools that have applied for this job-creating support are certainly expecting it to be there.

To summarize, of the $787 billion in the Recovery Act, about 94% is either in tax cuts, payments, or projects under contract. Of the remaining 6%, half has been awarded and contracts are being finalized -- and half is in the final stages of the award process. If you want to learn more about this breakdown and the specific programs it includes, check out this document (pdf) which provides more details.

What about reports that say that the amount “outlayed” is much smaller? “Outlays” measure when the government actually writes checks to recipients, and they do indeed move along more slowly. That, however, is as it should be: taxpayers should be pleased to know that we don’t write the checks on projects until the work is actually done (or until agreed upon progress goals are met).   That is why the pace of outlays is not the best measure of whether the Recovery Act is working: what taxpayers want to know is whether projects are moving forward, workers are being hired, and work is getting done. Projects under contract (“obligations”) measure that; “outlays” come later. That’s a good thing. And even by this measure, we are on track to hit the goal set when the Recovery Act passed: that 70% of the $787 billion in funds would be “outlayed” or provided in tax benefits by September 30, 2010.

The bottom line: the Recovery Act is on track to meet its goal of saving or creating 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 (a recent report said that it was in the range of 3 million jobs as of June 30^th) – with funds moving out promptly, but carefully.

Ed DeSeve is Special Advisor to the President for Recovery Implementation

If you visit Recovery.gov, you will see how you can pull up the latest map, type in your zip code and zoom in to get a closer look at how some Recovery Act projects are unfolding right in your own backyard.  Take for example my hometown, the great city of Philadelphia.  If I zoom in on the map, I can see details on Recovery Act projects - including who the dollars went to, when they got them and how many workers were funded last quarter through them.  And if you zoom back out to look at all of last quarter’s reports, you’ll see the total number or workers these recipients reported paying in that three month period using this small portion of Recovery dollars.

Now, you’ll notice I keep saying “some projects” and a “portion of spending” – that’s key here.  While these reports provide an extraordinary level of detail about Recovery Act projects, they only cover about $50 billion – or one fifth- of Recovery Act spending and tax relief through the end of last year.  Congress asked that these reports only be filed by a portion of Recovery Act recipients – specifically those putting the dollars to work in areas like infrastructure projects and education spending.

So that gives you a pretty good sense of what the reports and related jobs numbers do include: the number of workers recipients of a small pool of Recovery Act funds report they funded in the last three months of 2009 with Recovery Act dollars.  That’s an informative sample that tells us a lot about the kinds of projects underway, how far along they are and what sort of direct employment impact they may be having.  But here is what they don’t show us:

• Jobs funded by those dollars from previous or future quarters.  Remember, that $50 billion may have also funded jobs before October 1, 2009 – and may fund more jobs in the future.
• The job impact of the other 80 percent of Recovery Act spending last quarter which includes things like small business loans, tax credits, and financial assistance for individuals and families – all of which are job-creators.
•  Any jobs where the salary was not directly paid with Recovery Act dollars like the worker hired by the subcontractor for a government contract.  Or the worker hired by the asphalt quarry supplying asphalt for a half dozen Recovery Act projects.  Or the fast food worker hired because of the growing lunch rush due to a Recovery Act project underway across the street.

It’s also important to keep in mind that posting this level of information about a Federal Government program in full public view like this is quite simply unprecedented -- it’s never been done before in the entire history of our government.  And these reports are no ordinary government-released reports.  They come directly from the recipients of Recovery dollars themselves -- people like local government employees, community organization administrators and small business owners who don’t count jobs for a living.  While these are honest efforts to be as accurate as possible, we know they’re not perfect. 

With all of that in mind – just how many jobs has the Recovery Act created?  Is it the 599,108 number for this quarter posted on Recovery.gov?  Nope – remember, that represents just a portion of the job impact in the fourth quarter.  Is it that 599,108 number this quarter plus last quarter’s number?  No – both just account for a portion of spending and, since the method for counting was changed slightly this quarter to make it easier for recipients, the two numbers are pretty much apples and oranges.   The good news is that we already know the overall estimated job impact of the Recovery Act.  The Council of Economic Advisers recently released analysis that found the Recovery Act is already responsible for about 2 million jobs and the independent, non-partisan Congressional Budget Office agrees, putting the number at as many as 2.4 million jobs. 

So what exactly does the roughly 600,000 jobs number tell us?  Well, that small portion of Recovery spending recipients say yielded about 600,000 jobs funded is right in line with our goal to create or save 3.5 million jobs through the Recovery Act by the end of 2010.   That’s good news for the millions of Americans across the country that have or will bring home a paycheck thanks to the Recovery Act.

Ed DeSeve is Special Advisor to the President

You may have seen a misleading Associated Press story this morning on the accuracy of Recovery Act job reports that were posted earlier this month on Recovery.gov. On the same day that we learned that the economy has begun to grow again for the first time in over year, the very critics who opposed economic rescue from the beginning are now trying use this misleading story to twist the truth about the early success of the Recovery Act.

Here is what you should know:

Governors, mayors, county executives, private businesses and community organizations across the country submit reports to Recovery.gov so that you can get an unprecedented look at how your taxpayer dollars are being spent creating jobs and boosting the economy through the Recovery Act. These reports are not from the federal government – but from the very people putting Recovery funds to work.

Our top priority is ensuring that, when the reports are posted on Recovery.gov tomorrow, you will get the most accurate look possible at what has taken place with the Recovery Act over the last eight months. That’s why we have been working with the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board – an independent oversight body – and the actual people that submitted the reports to conduct an extensive three-week review of them.

Three business days into the review, the Board posted a preliminary portion of those reports – just federal contracts which represent less than 2 percent of the Recovery Act and are a sliver of the information collected – on Recovery.gov so that you could get a look at what had been turned in initially. We support the Board’s act of transparency – but were clear that day that we considered the reports "partial and preliminary" and noted that it was "too soon to draw any global conclusions" from them.

Our twenty-day review wraps up today and we can say with confidence that the full set of reports going up tomorrow – corrected versions of the reports posted on October 15th, and many more new reports being posted for the first time now -- are far sharper than the initial ones you saw two weeks ago. In fact, our review process had already caught four out of five items that AP's misleading story cites as “over-counting” jobs. With every review of the reports, with every call to the person filing them to confirm them, the information has gotten better and better – and we are looking forward to their public posting tomorrow. It will be a historic moment for government transparency.

Here are the real facts on AP's misleading story: 

“The government has overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under the president’s $787 billion recovery program, according to an Associated Press review of data released in the program’s first progress report.”

FACT: The reports are not from the government, but from the very people putting Recovery Act funds to work – governors, mayors, county executives, private businesses and community organizations across the country. We take our responsibly of reviewing these reports for accuracy very seriously – that’s why we are putting them through an extensive three-week review process that ends today. And the initial preliminary set of data representing just a sliver of the overall reports was not posted by the government – but by an independent oversight body overseeing our Recovery Act efforts. 

“The errors could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is released.”

FACT: The federal contract data AP reviewed was a test run posting of a small sub-set of the data that was made available to the public after less than three business days of review time. The full data that will be posted on Friday will have undergone an extensive review process for twenty days involving the Recovery Board, federal agencies and direct communication with the recipients themselves. So the data posted this Friday will be more accurate – not less – than what was posted on October 15th.

FACT: The federal contract data AP surveyed represents just 2 percent of overall Recovery Act spending and just a fraction of what will be posted on Recovery.gov on Friday. It does not provide a statistically significant indication of the quality of the full reporting that will come on Friday.  

"A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000."

FACT: The very first example AP cites was already corrected more than a week ago as part of the twenty-day review process and the change is in the final data posting being prepared for Friday. This item represents over 3,000 – or 60 percent – of the “nearly 5,000 jobs” AP uses to try to make its argument.

FACT: The company in question actually did hire more than 4,000 workers – but because the work was not full time, full year work, the rigorous standards at Recovery.gov don’t count it as 4,000 workers. AP is wrong in saying that 4,000 workers is not a “real” number: 4,000 people got paychecks and got work thanks to the Recovery Act. The posting was erroneous because our higher standards only count the equivalent of full-time, full-year jobs as jobs “created or saved.”

FACT: All recipients were given through October 30th to clarify and confirm their data – including those linked to federal contracts. Any conclusions drawn about the quality of that small portion of data as it was posted two weeks ago are simply premature.

"Officials at East Central Technical College in Douglas, Ga., said they now know they shouldn't have claimed 280 stimulus jobs linked to more than $200,000 to buy three semi-trucks and trailers for commercial driving instruction, and a modular classroom and bathroom for a health education program."

FACT: This item – which represents less than .06 percent of the total jobs reported was also already corrected more than a week ago as part of the twenty-day review process and the change is in the final data posting being prepared for Friday.

FACT: All recipients were given through October 30th to clarify and confirm their data – including those linked to federal contracts. Any conclusions drawn about the quality of that small portion of data as it was posted two weeks ago are simply premature.

"The San Joaquin, Calif., Regional Rail Commission reported creating or saving 125 jobs as part of a stimulus project to lay railroad track. Because the project drew from two pools of money, the commission reported that figure twice, bringing the total to 250."

FACT: This item – which represents less than .04 percent of the total jobs reported - was also already corrected as part of the twenty-day review process and the change is in the final data posting being prepared for Friday.

FACT: All recipients were given through October 30th to clarify and confirm their data – including those linked to federal contracts. Any conclusions drawn about the quality of that small portion of data as it was posted two weeks ago are simply premature.

"The Toledo, Ohio-based Koring Group also received two FCC contracts to help people make the switch to digital television. The company reported hiring 26 people for each of the two contracts, bringing its total jobs to 54 on the government's official count. But the company cited the same 26 workers for both contracts, meaning the same jobs were counted twice. The job count was further inflated because each job lasted only about two months, so each worker should have counted as one-sixth of a full-time job."

FACT: This item – which represents less than .01 percent of the total jobs reported - was also already corrected as part of the twenty-day review process and the change is in the final data posting being prepared for Friday.

FACT: All recipients were given through October 30th to clarify and confirm their data – including those linked to federal contracts. Any conclusions drawn about the quality of that small portion of data as it was posted two weeks ago are simply premature.

"While the thousands of overstated jobs represent a tiny sliver of the overall economy, they represent a significant percentage of the initial employment count credited to the stimulus program."

FACT: The overestimate of “thousands” of jobs AP cites is out of hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be reported overall on Friday – the vast majority of which underwent the more extensive twenty-day vetting process.

FACT: Even if you remove the “nearly 5,000 jobs” from the total federal contracts job number, it is still in-line with government and private forecaster’s estimates of about one million Recovery Act jobs overall to-date.

Ed DeSeve is Coordinator of Recovery Implementation

• Read the report: "100 Days, 100 Projects" (pdf)