Amid stagnant unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery, the White House is reverting to a simpler and arguably more misleading way to count job creation related to the stimulus package.
In a little-noticed memo published last month the Office of Management and Budget announced that it would no longer keep count of jobs created and saved by stimulus projects, but would keep a running tally of all people who work on the projects, even if they were not in danger of losing their job.
The memo, which was first written about by ProPublica, was circulated to federal agencies by OMB head Peter Orzag.
OMB says it made the change to prevent the errors seen in previous job counts, but Republicans say the White House is trying to boost poor job numbers anyway it can.
One example of how the new method would change numbers is Chrysler. According to ProPublica, the company originally reported zero jobs for a government contract of 3,000 vehicles because those positions were filled from existing employees. Under the new system, those jobs would count. -CPP
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