Stimulus bill more stimulating than expected

CC photo from Argonne National Laboratory

Conservative critics love to talk about how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the “stimulus package,” has clearly not worked, because the economy hasn’t recovered yet. All I had to do was a cursory Google search to find this:

According to the latest survey of its members by the National Association of Business Economists:

“The vast majority (73%) of respondents reported the fiscal stimulus enacted in February 2009 has had no impact on employment to date. While 68% also believe a jobs bill, such as the one recently enacted into law, will have no impact on payrolls, 30% do believe it will boost payrolls moderately.”

Well, does the Congressional Budget Office have news for you. Not only has it worked as expected, but it has, in fact, exceeded expectations:

CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, ARRA’s policies:

• Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent,
• Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points.
• Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million, and
• Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise.

Here\’s the CBO report (PDF).