Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein's (in)famous report entitled "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" included a graph of the projected path of the unemployment rate with and without the stimulus package. It's on page 4 of the linked document.
Well the good people from Innocent Bystanders have taken this graph and chunked on the actual unemployment numbers from March and April. That graph looks like this:
Yes, you are reading it right. The actual numbers are marginally ABOVE the "no stimulus bill" path. From this I conclude that either (A) the stimulus wasn't very stimulating, or (B) the authors are fairly poor forecasters, or (C) all of the above.
3 comments:
Awesome follow-up.
New Hampshire or Montana to secede?
...Please?
(Mungowitz and Angus, you guys gotta do something, seriously, the federal ooze just won't stop: Obama now wants to guarantee all muni bonds. What a power grab. What a waste of money.)
"Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope."
hmmm. I guess they're gonna have some splanin' to do if the actual unemployment numbers from here on out are greater than the projected numbers without a recovery plan. It's just too bad I can't laugh about it.
Reality bites.
OTH, the USSR hung on for 70 years despite much worse economic policies. I can't wait that long. Here's to American Glasnost
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