Looking Back on the 5th Anniversary of the Federal Stimulus

Jason Furman writes for WhiteHouse.gov about the accumulated impacts for the 2009 federal stimulus package on the occasion of its five-year anniversary. Here are some of the key findings of the Council of Economic Adviors' final report on the impacts of the $787 billion spending bill:

• “The Recovery Act, by itself, saved or created about 6 million job-years, where a job-year is defined as one full-time job for one year.”
• “[The] Recovery Act improved more than 40,000 miles of road and over 2,700 bridges, brought 693 drinking water systems serving over 48 million Americans into compliance with the Clean Water Act, made high-speed internet available to about 20,000 community institutions, and launched the Race to the Top program, which incentivized 34 states to improve their education policies.”

Furman also includes assessments of the impacts of the additional fiscal and economic measures approved by President Obama, like “a temporary payroll tax cut for 160 million working Americans.”