Enter the Job-Month

By Steve Poftak
October 5th, 2009

During last year’s casino debate, there was an awkward period when huge job creation estimates were being thrown around — 30,000 new jobs was the high point. It turned out that the these estimates were derived by multiplying the number of jobs by their duration (e.g. 10,000 construction jobs for three years equals 30,000 “jobs”).

I see the logic, but it overstates the number of actual jobs created.

The Feds have no taken this analysis to the next level — coming out with an estimate of 122,000 new jobs from stimulus spending. Turns out that this figure is based on job-months (which would result in the above equation becoming 10,000 jobs for 36 months equals 360,000 jobs!).