White House Juices the Job Count

The White House will now count all jobs funded by stimulus money, not just those that were created or saved. The job market is still hemorrhaging and the administration might be looking to do a little inflation. Or it might honestly be trying to simplify a confusing and highly criticized formula for counting jobs.

ProPublica:

Part of the problem is that there’s no accepted standard for counting jobs, said Mary Foelster of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

“It’s not so much calculating jobs; it’s trying to have evidence that a job was retained,” she said. “What is the client going to point to to say, ‘I was going to lay someone off, but now I’m not?’ ”

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