Skip to main content
off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS

CBO: Up to 3.3 Million People Owe Their Jobs to the Recovery Act

A new Congressional Budget Office analysis finds that the 2009 Recovery Act is
continuing to save jobs and protect the economy from what would have been a much deeper recession. As of June, the Recovery Act had:

  • increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million,
  • increased real GDP by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent (see chart below),

Image
2010.08.24-f1.jpg

  • reduced the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points (see chart below), and

Image
2010.08.24-f2.jpg

  • boosted the number of “full-time-equivalent” jobs by between 2.0 million and 4.8 million, both by saving jobs and by boosting the number of hours
    worked. (Without the Recovery Act, many full-time workers would have been reduced to part-time status and fewer would have worked overtime.)

For these and other charts on the economy, see our new chart book.

Michael Leachman
Senior Vice President for State Fiscal Policy and Co-Leader of the State Fiscal Policy Division