Oberstar: MN stands to gain 66,000 jobs from stimulus bill (or is it 60,200?)

Posted at 10:48 AM on February 12, 2009 by Tom Scheck (4 Comments)

DFL Rep. Jim Oberstar says the state stands to gain 66,000 jobs from the stimulus bill. His office issued a news release with job projections by Congressional District. Here's the info:

Minnesota 66,000

Congressional District 1 Minnesota 7,100

Congressional District 2 Minnesota 8,400

Congressional District 3 Minnesota 7,600

Congressional District 4 Minnesota 7,000

Congressional District 5 Minnesota 7,200

Congressional District 6 Minnesota 8,700

Congressional District 7 Minnesota 6,800

Congressional District 8 Minnesota 7,400

UPDATED NOTE: I just added up the job projections by congressional district and got 60,200 jobs. Trying to confirm why there's a difference...

It's interesting that the 2nd, 3rd and 6th Districts stand to gain the most amount of jobs. GOP Rep. John Kline (2nd), GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen (3rd) and GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann (6th) voted against the bill. Minnesota's 7th District (DFL Rep. Collin Peterson) stands to gain the fewest amount of jobs in the state. Peterson also voted against the bill.

As MPR noted earlier this week, the promise of job creation doesn't always pan out.

Update: Here's an explanation from Oberstar's office:

On Thursday, February 12, 2009 our office distributed state by state estimates of jobs created or saved by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that were prepared by the White House. On the Minnesota entry the estimated number of jobs saved in the eight congressional districts totaled 60,200, while the statewide total reported in the same document was 66,000.

This morning the White House explained the discrepancy in these figures. The 66,000 figure was a statewide estimate that was arrived at using a different set of figures than were used to develop the estimates for each congressional district. Because these calculations were done separately, using different data, the totals do not match precisely. White House officials say that the 66,000 figure was more accurate because it was based on more complete state data, they expect to revise the individual congressional district totals when more accurate information becomes available.

John Schadl
Communications Director
U.S. Congressman Jim Oberstar

Comments (4)

Tom, the larger numbers for the 2nd and 6th CDs are perhaps related to their being the fastest growing CDs since the last census. They thus presumably have the largest populations, and may have an even larger advantage in numbers of working age adults. fwiw.

Posted by peter hill | February 12, 2009 11:21 AM

Did you bother to ask how these numbers were estimated? Or if these jobs are permanent jobs or are these just job-years.

Posted by Bill Krause | February 12, 2009 12:20 PM

In response to Bill's question about the source of the above numbers. The estimates are derived from an analysis of the overall employment impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act conducted by Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President.

It is also interesting to note that Mark Zandi the Chief Economist of Moody's Economy.com and an economic adviser to John McCain's presidential campaign also looked at job creation generated by the recovery bill. His analysis of an earlier House version of the bill found that it would generate 91,000 jobs by 2010, lowering Minnesota's unemployment by 1.8 percent.

You can read the complete report here:
http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Economic_Stimulus_House_Plan_012109.pdf

John Schadl
Communications Director
Congressman Jim Oberstr

Posted by John Schadl | February 12, 2009 2:16 PM

So will our representatives that choose to vote against this bill (Paulsen, Bachmann, Kline, Peterson) then take credit for helping either save or create new jobs when it comes time for re-election (that's starting pretty soon, isn't it?). I would love to see some hard numbers on where and how many jobs were created by the "private sector" due to 8 years of Bush tax cuts (and I mean for the wealthiest 2-3 %). This is far from a perfect bill, but it's time we did something for the middle class.

Posted by David B. Hoden | February 13, 2009 8:49 AM

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