Stimu…What?
The media has today reported that Governor Patrick claims 14,000 new jobs have been created from the so-called stimulus package.
This is reported at the same time that the unemployement rate ,again, increased in Massachusetts, to 9.1%.
The bottom line is that Job creation, real job creation, long term job creation is lagging sorely behind the layoff curve.
In the article, it was noted that Massachusetts received $4.3 Billion in stimulus money.
A simplistic look would assume that if you receive $4.3 Billion and create 14,000 new jobs, the cost of job creation is $307,142.86 per job. My guess is that we have not created 14,000 six figure jobs in Massachsetts.
If the median income in the state is about $42,062, then we should have been able to create 102,230 new jobs.
This is still woefully short.
The number of unemployed persons in the State is between 270,000 and 450,000, depending upon which data file one looks at and whether one counts the underemployed or not.
The Massachusetts minimum wage law sets a rate at $8 per hour for a 40 hour per week job. This is $320 per week. The stimulus money, at that rate of pay, would have created 13,437,500 new jobs. That is not a real solution either because most people today cannot live on that wage. But somewhere between these numbers is the possibility to create enough jobs to employ and support the currently un and underemployed population of the state.
All those who are now re-employed, I am happy for you but until the job creation rate can start to approach the number of unemployed we are still deeply in the woods and this means people are hurting. They are not being adequately supported by government policy and the money that is being spent may have been better spent. Maybe it could have been sent as a cash gift to each un or underemployed person. This would have been a windfall of $9,500 to $16,000 dollars per person. Sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but it would have been spent and stimulated , oops, there is that word again, the economy.
I am not advocating that as the correct method to use. I only offer it as one alternative that probably has a better chance of being a cost effective method to stimulate job growth.
There are many others. As many solutions as there are people to offer them. What are your solutions? Lets gather them together and send them to our elected officials and see if they can find a better means to get out of this mess.
Note: Please understand that the numbers above do not account for overhead and other expenses associated with job creation. They are examples only and assume a pure dollar for dollar transfer of funding to job growth. I understand that there are other factors involved.