That means that any stimulus money used to cover payroll will be included in the jobs credited to the program, including pay raises for existing employees and pay for people who never were in jeopardy of losing their positions.
The new rules, quietly published last month in a memorandum to federal agencies, mark the White House’s latest response to criticism about the way it counts jobs credited to the stimulus. When the Associated Press first reported flaws in the job counts in October, the White House said errors were being corrected and future counts would provide a full and accurate accounting of just how many stimulus jobs were saved or created.
Numbers published last month identified more than 640,000 jobs linked to stimulus projects around the country. The White House said the public could have confidence in those new numbers, which officials argued proved the administration was on track to keep Obama’s promise that the stimulus would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.
But more errors were found, with tens of thousands of problems documented in corrected counts, from the substantive to the clerical. Republicans have used those flaws to attack a key domestic policy approved during Obama’s presidency.
The new rules are intended to streamline the process, said Tom Gavin, spokesman for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.
The new stimulus job reports will continue to offer details about jobs and projects. But they were never expected to be the public accounting of Obama’s goal to save or create 3.5 million jobs, Gavin said.
The quarterly job reports posted on the website for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board reflect only a fraction of the jobs created under the program and can’t account for job creation stemming from other stimulus programs such as tax rebates and other federal aid, the spokesman said.
But the new rules mean that future claims of job creation from the stimulus will be even more misleading, said Representative Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“It is troubling that the administration is changing the rules and further inflating the Recovery Act’s impact and masking the failure of the stimulus to produce sustainable economic growth or real job creation,’’ Issa said in a letter sent last week to the government board monitoring stimulus spending.
