Open Government

Chapter 24. My Data Can’t Tell You That

Bill Allison

In April 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in its monthly Employment Situation update, reported that some 539,000 Americans lost their jobs, pushing the total number of job losses since the recession began to more than 5.7 million. Job losses were widespread across all economic sectors; the unemployment rate rose to 8.9%.^[171]

The worsening employment picture contradicted projections made by a pair of advisors to the incoming administration of President Barack Obama. On January 10, 2009, in a report titled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan,” Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein suggested that, with a $775 million stimulus bill, unemployment would peak at around 7%—in the fourth quarter of 2009. In fairness to Romer and Bernstein, they also cautioned that their estimates were just that—estimates. Nevertheless, actual job losses, which occurred even though Congress passed a slightly heftier $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, galloped along much faster than the pair of advisors said would occur if Congress had done nothing. Absent a stimulus, they warned, the unemployment rate could hit 9% sometime in late 2009. In reality, the U.S. unemployment rate reached 9.4% in May.

Around the time these job loss numbers were coming out, I started looking into the Obama administration’s efforts to make stimulus spending as transparent as possible. I began with the idea of doing a quick review of ...