Fuzzy Math: It's Official

Last week, I addressed the mangled jobs math the Administration used to justify its stimulus package. On Thursday, the Government Accountability Office agreed, confirming "a range of significant reporting and quality issues that need to be addressed" regarding the accuracy of job claims credited to the stimulus package. In particular, GAO Report 10-223, Recipient Reported Jobs Data Provide Some Insight into Use of Recovery Act Funding, but Data Quality and Reporting Issues Need Attention, found (Highlights at 2):

Erroneous or questionable data entries that merit further review:

• 3,978 reports that showed no dollar amount received or expended but included more than 50,000 jobs created or retained;
• 9,247 reports that showed no jobs but included expended amounts approaching $1 billion, and
• Instances of other reporting anomalies such as discrepancies between award amounts and the amounts reported as received which, although relatively small in number, indicate problematic issues in the reporting.

So, the GAO concluded (at 40): "At this point, due to issues in reporting and data quality including uncertainty created by varying interpretations of the guidance on FTEs, we cannot draw a conclusion about the validity of the data reported as a measure of the direct employment effect of spending covered by the recipient reports."

Which doubtlessly will become an argument for a second jobs bill.

(via Bloomberg News)