On Wednesday, the White House updated its estimate of the impact of the stimulus law, projecting the spending act has created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs.
That's up from the estimate of 2.2 million to 2.8 million jobs that was released in the first quarter of the year from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The new estimate says the act is on track to meet, if it hasn't already reached, the promise that the stimulus act would save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 -- a number that has been fiercely disputed by critics.
Two days earlier, the Treasury Department released a report claiming private employers had hired 4.5 million Americans who had been out of work for two months or longer between February to May, making those businesses eligible to receive up to $8.5 billion in tax exemptions and credits under a law passed in February.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office touted the report in a "Breaking News" e-mail blast.
But the Treasury department didn't include the number of people who lost jobs during those months.
Pelosi's office could not provide the numbers and deferred questions about Treasury's report to the Treasury Department.
The Labor Department could not provide the numbers nor verify the Treasury's estimate.
The Treasury used a monthly population survey and merged the data from adjacent months. But the Labor Department said it doesn't use that method and cannot determine how many people who accepted jobs one month accepted another job in a different month after leaving the previous one.
Economist Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland, said that he didn't trust the report and blasted Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for issuing it.
"Basically, what you got there is Tim Geithner playing politics," he said. "The Treasury Department talking about hires is like a chiropractor talking about brain surgery. The Treasury Department is unskilled at this."
Morici said there's a reason the Labor Department doesn't use this method of analysis, calling Geithner "incompetent."
"I would have more faith in a pastry chef making economic policy than Timothy Geithner after this."
