New CBO Report -- Recovery Act Produced Up To 2.1 Million Jobs

One year ago, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law to bring America's economy back from the brink by giving most Americans the fastest and one of the largest tax cuts in history, creating and saving jobs, and laying the building blocks for long-term prosperity.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on the estimated impact of the Recovery Act on employment and economic output in the last three months of 2009. According to the Associated Press, the "report reflects agreement among economists that the measure boosted the economy":

A new report by congressional economists says the economic stimulus law produced jobs for 1 million to 2.1 million people by the end of last year.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office study says the $862 billion stimulus added between 1.5 to 3.5 percentage points to the growth of the economy.

Other findings from the CBO report:

According to CBO, $272 billion in tax cuts and investments (or about of one-third of the package) from the Recovery Act have gone out through the end of 2009.

The Recovery Act is estimated to have lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.5 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points in the 4th quarter of 2009.

In 2010, the CBO estimates that the Recovery Act will:

Increase the number of people employed by between 1.3 million and 3.3 million

Raise real GDP between 1.4 percent and 4.0 percent

Lower the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points

Read the full CBO report (.pdf)»

Read the CBO Director's blog post on the report»