I was listening to the news this morning and heard a number (can’t recall what it was) about the number of jobs created or saved. Here are some examples jobs created or saved.

The federal government sent Bob Bray $26,174 in stimulus aid to fix a fence and replace the roofs on public apartments in Blooming Grove, Texas, a town of fewer than 900 people outside Dallas. He hired five roofers and an inspector to do the job.  But the number of jobs he reported to the government looked very different — 450 jobs.  He said that he told the government that he had created six jobs but that a federal official told him that wasn’t right. So he reported the number of hours the roofers worked instead.  That’s the number that was used.

The police department in Plymouth, Conn., claimed in its report that a $15,355 grant used to buy new computers had created or saved 108 jobs. The department had 22 law enforcement officers last year, according to the FBI. Mayor Vincent Festa said that the town has resorted to “counting paper clips” to save money but that it had no plans to lay off any of its police officers, even without the stimulus. So how did they create or save 108 jobs.  Even if the money helped keep the current officers on staff that number should have only been 22.

The Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, which employs about 500 people in its Head Start preschool program, reported creating or saving 935 jobs with about $1.3 million in funding. They are using its stimulus money to give a 1.84% pay raise to its employees and pay for other needs such as playground equipment and training for the teachers who serve 2,300 low-income children.  Another example in which at best, if they were going to fire everyone and the stimulus money was used for that purpose the saved or created number would only be 500.

Teach for America, which helps place recent graduates in teaching jobs in urban and rural districts, reported that a $2 million grant created or saved 1,425 jobs. They used that money to pay part of the salaries of 125 employees; a separate $6 million allowed it to expand the training program to include 1,300 more graduates.

 So with math like this do you still trust that the governments accounting of how much health care will cost is accurate?