According to Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, the federal stimulus actually added about 2 percentage points to the unemployment rate. The jobs the stimulus was claimed to have created or saved can be mostly attributed to extending unemployment benefits and bolstering government programs such as Social Security and Medicaid.
Additionally the 4th quarter GDP report notes that GDP gains were attributed to private and fixed investment and not federal spending.
Yet Gov. Perdue is still calling the stimulus a success that “saved the country from a tremendous catastrophe” and continues to lobby for even more federal money to fund infrastructure and transportation projects.
All the while North Carolina’s unemployment rate continues to increase. According to the North Carolina Employment Security Commission’s latest reports unemployment increased to 11.2 percent in December – an overall 3.2 percent increase in the past year.
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