Stimulus to Save Thousands of Jobs in Rhode Island
Posted on May 2, 2010
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is projected to save thousands of jobs in Rhode Island (click here).
The Act has been responsible for creating or saving 11,000 jobs in Rhode Island since its signing in February 2009, the Obama administration said Friday.
According to PBN.com, that would be 2.4 percent of the 452,500 non-farm payroll jobs in Rhode Island as of last month.
Rhode Island has lost 44,000 jobs since employment here peaked in January 2007, so by the White Houses estimate the stimulus has kept Rhode Islands employment losses 20 percent below what the total would have been without it.
In its report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers said more than $1.5 billion in federal stimulus money would wind up coming to Rhode Island because of the law.
Nationwide, the council said the law has been responsible for creating or saving roughly 2.5 million jobs, half of which was because of more than $200 billion in tax relief and financial assistance for lower and middle-income families included in the stimulus.
Our multifaceted analysis indicates that the Recovery Act has played an essential role in changing the trajectory of the economy, the council said in its report.
It has raised the level of GDP substantially in its first full year of existence and has saved or created between 2.2 and 2.8 million jobs as of the first quarter of 2010, the report continued. The tax relief and income support provisions of the ARRA alone account for roughly half of the beneficial employment effects.
The council did not break down how it arrived at the number of jobs the stimulus money created or saved in Rhode Island.
The R.I. Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment reported that money funneled through state agencies created 1,301 jobs through the fourth quarter of last year.
