時事資訊:美國刺激計劃減少失業人口100萬

【英文原文】

White House: Stimulus Saved or Created One Million Jobs

The White House Council of Economic Advisers said Thursday that one million more people would have been out of work in August without programs funded by the $787 billion stimulus plan.

The White House council, headed by Berkeley economist Christina Romer, said in its first report on the stimulus plan's impact that it had compared 'actual economic performance to the predictions of a plausible statistical baseline' to conclude that the stimulus plan had added 2.3 percentage points to real gross domestic product growth between April and June.

The report also used economic models to estimate that the stimulus plan had added between 600,000 and 1.1 million to employment since it was implemented. Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech last week that the plan had created or saved 750,000 jobs since it was passed.

The administration still faces its biggest test in next month's deadline for recipients of stimulus money to report how many jobs they created or saved using the money. That will provide the first direct headcount of how many people are working because of the plan.

Republican leaders have challenged the Obama Administration on the effectiveness of the stimulus, pointing to the rising unemployment rate, now at 9.7%, a 26-year high. Many businesses are still shedding jobs and the Federal Reserve Beige Book report on business conditions released earlier this week said labor market conditions remain weak around the nation.