WASHINGTON. D.C. – Despite objective evidence that the President’s Economic Stimulus is failing to meet expectations for creating and protecting jobs, President Obama and other officials continue to claim that the Stimulus has “created or saved” 150,000 jobs and will create or save an additional 600,000 in the next 100 days. These claims create concern because they are contradicted by available information and the Administration, mysteriously, refuses to make public the formula used for calculations.

In their letter to the President, six Republican leaders on the House Oversight Committee take specific issue with the “jobs saved” claim, which no government agency, private sector group, or research economist has any idea how to reliably calculate and track. “The creation of a metric that is not measurable allows your administration to advance job claims that are not subject to public scrutiny,” the Members write. “This clever creation is a convenient vehicle for avoiding accountability.”  The letter asks for the President to provide a “full and complete explanation of the methodology and data used to compute your claim of 150,000 jobs created or saved to date, as well as your claim that 600,000 jobs will be created or saved this summer.”

On January 10, 2009, the office of Vice President-Elect Joe Biden released a document, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.”  The Obama Administration predicted that without passage of the Economic Stimulus, the unemployment rate could reach 9.2% or 13.9 million jobs.  By passing the Economic Stimulus proposal, the Administration claimed unemployment would not exceed 8%.

Source:  Office of the Vice President-Elect

The current unemployment rate stands at 9.4% and rising – 14.5 million Americans are out of work.  The economy has already lost 2.2 million more jobs than the Administration predicted would happen at the peak of unemployment levels after passage of the Stimulus.  By any objective measure, the Stimulus has not protected jobs as the Administration predicted.

“The Administration needs to show their work on how they’re arriving at numbers they’re using to tout the dubious success of the stimulus,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) the Committee’s Ranking Member.  “Vague descriptions aren’t enough.  This President, who says he favors transparency should be transparent and disclose the formula being used to calculate these claims.”

“When the stimulus was passed, the Administration said we’re going to create jobs and unemployment would reach a high of 8% and begin to come down,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH). “We all know that’s not the case.  In fact, we’ve lost jobs – unemployment is 9.4%.”  Jordan further noted that unemployment in his district is even higher than the national average.

“California has more people out-of-work than many states,” said Congressman Brian Bilbray (R-CA). “The people of California expect accountability during this recession, and the president needs to live up to his promise of open and responsible government if he hopes to keep the trust of the people. In this tough economic time, transparency needs to be number one.”

At a press conference yesterday, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) discussed several wasteful stimulus projects that have no recognizable benefit for the economy, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) explained that rising deficits are having a negative impact on affordable lending, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) expressed disappointment that recovery.gov does not contain information that can be used to verify the Administration’s job claims.

Click here to read the letter sent to President Barack Obama.

Click here to watch Reps. Issa, Jordan, Chaffetz, Bilbray, Flake, McHenry explain their concerns about the 2.2 million jobs that the Stimulus has failed to protect.