In its ongoing efforts to talk up the economy and claim transparency in government, today the White House released a nifty site at Recovery.org that allows everyone to see “where the Recovery Act money is going and who is getting.” I know the goal here is to convince people that the stimulus is “creating or saving” jobs, but I don’t know how anybody can review this data and come to that conclusion.

Let’s just take the President’s home state for an example: This spring, Illinois secured more Federal stimulus highway funds than any other state, so I would hope that it’s had the best results. (I suspect the state received so much Federal money because it is so mismanaged and therefore has the most projects behind schedule – not because of any White House favoritism.) And, in fact, according to the Administration’s website, the state has in fact been awarded $475,750,000, of which it’s received $21,650,000.

So the first question must be: Why has the Federal government disbursed less than 5 percent of Illinois’ stimulus funding?

Second, how much worse would Illinois’ economy be if the stimulus had not been passed? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, since the stimulus was signed into law in February, nearly 130,000 Illinoisans have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate in the state has climbed from 8.6% to 10.5%. The White House claims credit for a grand total of 288 jobs in Illinois created by the stimulus. Seriously.

I applaud the White House’s attempts at transparency. But in this case, it’s transparently clear something is wrong.

UPDATE (10/31): Apparently somebody at the White House agreed something was wrong with their numbers. A day later, the numbers for Illinois are different: Now Recovery.gov reports that over a third of the $6.4 billion awarded to the state has been received, and 24,448 jobs created. That’s still spending over $101,000 per job, but that’s a different debate…

Tags: economics, White House