Editor: I felt compelled to respond to the letter to the editor by Dave Kerst entitled, “Stimulus no success story,” published in Saturday's Tracy Press, which itself is in response to Mickey McGuire's commentary the week earlier. I was not surprised at Mr. Kerst's tone given my interaction with him via the Tracy Press online forum regarding an earlier submission of my own.
Kerst notes that 3.8 million jobs have been lost since last January, but as President Obama pointed out in his face-to-face with the 140-member Republican Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives in Baltimore on Friday, over 1.4 million of those jobs were lost in the first two months of 2009 – before any of Obama's policies were in effect. According to the US Department of Labor, over 680,000 jobs were lost in December 2008 and more than 740,000 in January 2009, and another 680,000 lost in February. When comparing that to the 85,000 lost in December 2009, it is clear that things are not nearly as bad as they were before Obama was sworn in – roughly 800% better – at least in terms of that statistic – which itself is a lagging economic indicator. The data shows a steady decline in job loss since Obama took office except for one blip in June when there was an increase in job loss – likely more attributable to seasonal effects than to the recession, and again in December as there was actually a net gain of 4,000 jobs in November.
Kerst says America doesn't need any more Obama success stories, but here is one that may interest him. If all goes well, I will be shortly contracted to work on a project that is funded by the stimulus, but since I am a contractor, the employment statistic will be unaffected. Furthermore, as my wife's position is in jeopardy given her employer's impending budget cuts, although the employment statistic may actually worsen by one, the revenue the contract would bring in would exceed my wife's current salary, so we may actually be better off – despite the job loss data.
Thus, while numbers don't lie, they also don’t necessarily tell the whole truth either.
It should be noted that more than two thirds of the stimulus has yet to be spent, and the situation, while still dire for many, could be a lot worse.
Daniel Wells, Tracy