The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) created or saved 44,000 jobs in Wisconsin, according to a new report. The Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) released an analysis last week detailing the national and state impact through the end of 2009 of ARRA funds.
In the last quarter of 2009, the federal government outlayed $84.4 billion in ARRA funds, bringing the total for the year to $263.3 billion. That represents one-third of the funding appropriated by ARRA. The CEA concluded that another $149.7 billion had been obligated by the end of 2009, bringing the total spent or obligated to a little more than half of the total.
Although it is difficult to determine how the economic situation would have developed without ARRA, the CEA estimates that the federal stimulus increased the number of jobs nationwide by 1.5 to 2 million by the end of 2009. Forty-four thousand of those jobs are in Wisconsin.
The CEA estimates that the stimulus added between 2 and 3 percentage points to real GDP growth in the second quarter of 2009, between 3 and 4 percentage points in the third quarter, and between 1.5 and 3 percentage points in the fourth quarter.
On January 30, a second round of job reports by recipients of ARRA grants, contracts and loans will be posted on www.recovery.gov. That website and the reports account for just a small portion of total ARRA spending. It does not include individual and business tax credits or other direct assistance, such as the increases in Food Share benefits and unemployment insurance. The CEA report, on the other hand, bases its estimates on the full range of ARRA expenditures.
