GOP lawmakers question stimulus job creation statistics

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has said it used a macroeconomic model to show that the stimulus saved or created 150,000 jobs during the first 100 days of Recovery Act implementation, and will save or create 600,000 more by the end of the summer. This model, the council said, used a "conservative rule of thumb" that a 1 percent increase in gross domestic product would correspond to a bump of about 1 million jobs.

But the congressmen -- Reps. Darrell Issa, Calif.; Jim Jordan, Ohio; Patrick McHenry, N.C.; Jason Chaffetz, Utah; Jeff Flake, Ariz.; and Brian Bilbray, Calif. -- said the administration is not being transparent about its calculations. In a letter to Obama on Thursday, the lawmakers asked the administration to disclose its methodology fully to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"It appears that you simply rely on creative models to produce speculative macroeconomic forecasts of the national employment effects of stimulus spending," the lawmakers wrote. "Mr. President, you've repeatedly promised an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability for stimulus spending. Selectively harvesting convenient economic data and divining inventive formulas to create positive results does not fulfill this promise."

They also expressed concern over estimates of jobs saved, saying as far as they can tell, no government agency, private sector group or economist knows how to reliably calculate and track such statistics.

"The creation of a metric that is not measurable allows your administration to advance job claims that are not subject to public scrutiny," they wrote.

Jared Bernstein, chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden, defended the administration's methodology in May, calling it "absolutely tried and true."

"There's simply no other way to make this kind of estimate," Bernstein said. "You have to have an estimate of what would have occurred in the absence of your stimulus plan in order to come up with the jobs that you've created or saved. Every macro model, whether it's Federal Reserve or private forecasters, engages in these kinds of exercises."

Issa said on Thursday that he fully expects the administration to respond to the lawmakers' request.