Marathon Pundit: Still more "saved" jobs lies: Massachusetts, South Carolina

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Still more "saved" jobs lies: Massachusetts, South Carolina

The "saved" jobs lies continue to be discovered. Just wait until these people are in charge of health care--when they "save" lives.

First Massachusetts, courtesy of the Boston Globe:

One of the largest reported jobs figures comes from Bridgewater State College, which is listed as using $77,181 in stimulus money for 160 full-time work-study jobs for students. But Bridgewater State spokesman Bryan Baldwin said the college made a mistake and the actual number of new jobs was "almost nothing." Bridgewater has submitted a correction, but it is not yet reflected in the report.

In other cases, federal money that recipients already receive annually - subsidies for affordable housing, for example - was reclassified this year as stimulus spending, and the existing jobs already supported by those programs were credited to stimulus spending. Some of these recipients said they did not even know the money they were getting was classified as stimulus funds until September, when federal officials told them they had to file reports.

"There were no jobs created. It was just shuffling around of the funds," said Susan Kelly, director of property management for Boston Land Co., which reported retaining 26 jobs with $2.7 million in rental subsidies for its affordable housing developments in Waltham. "It's hard to figure out if you did the paperwork right. We never asked for this."

The federal stimulus report for Massachusetts has so many errors, missing data, or estimates instead of actual job counts that it may be impossible to accurately tally how many people have been employed by the massive infusion of federal money. Massachusetts is expected to receive an estimated $1 billion more in stimulus contracts, grants, and loans.

The Charleston Post and Courier reports and South Carolina "saved" jobs:

A closer look at some of South Carolina's largest job-stimulus contracts show the reports are fraught with errors.

The largest job creation effort so far at 3,495 jobs stemmed from a statewide temporary summer work program, mostly for youths, which never intended to create full-time work for participants, said Peggy Torrey, the state Commerce Department's deputy secretary of work force. Only about one-fifth of those jobs became permanent.

"The idea was to expose those young people to the world of work," said Torrey, whose office was in charge of the temporary work program.

She said the her agency reported the job numbers based on instructions from the U.S. Department of Labor.(Emphasis mine)