WASHINGTON. D.C. – Ahead of next week’s “jobs summit” the White House is hosting, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent a letter today to Vice President Joe Biden asking the Administration to “cease public use of the inaccurate jobs ‘created or saved’ metric.”

“Following documented gross inaccuracies and confusion associated with counting of job claims, we ask that the Administration cease public use of the inaccurate jobs “created or saved” metric and instead focus efforts on lowering the unemployment rate as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Leader Boehner and Ranking Member Issa wrote.

On November 13, Ranking Member Darrell Issa of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sent a letter to Earl Devaney, the Chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, asking if he could certify as “accurate and auditable” the job creation and retention claims made by the Obama Administration for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the “stimulus”).  Chairman Devaney responded, both in writing and at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, that he could not.

“The inaccuracy of the job creation and retention claims posted on the Administration’s website, http://www.recovery.gov, has not prevented Administration officials from touting this misleading and inaccurate number as evidence that the President’s stimulus spending package is succeeding even as the unemployment rate continues to rise,” wrote Boehner and Issa.  The reality is that the metric of jobs ‘created or saved’ was invented by politicians, not economists – it cannot be verified as accurate.”

Appearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last Thursday, Earl Devaney, the Chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, agreed with Issa’s statement that we do not have the “ability to calculate the full time jobs equivalent.”

Issa: Mr. Devaney, you’re the most honest man I know.  Without a whole lot of in between, shouldn’t we be more conservative and say, ‘Look, this is what the reports are.  We’re scrubbing it.  This is a new system.  It has its problems.  We hope at least they’re reporting the dollars right and we have no idea whether those people have the ability to calculate the full time jobs equivalent but we’re going to get to the bottom of it.  Wouldn’t that be a fairer way to put it?”

Devaney: “I like that statement.”

Issa: “Thank you Mr. Devaney.”

Boehner and Issa have asked Biden to respond to their letter by December 1st, in advance of a jobs summit being held by the White House December 3rd.

CLICK HERE to view the Boehner-Issa Letter

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