Yes, the unemployment situation is bad, and a lot of people are blaming the Obama stimulus package for not working and/or making things worse.
Of course, what some people don't see — or can't see — is what things would have been like had it not been for the stimulus package.
Fortunately, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office just released a report… and its finding is unequivocal: were it not for the stimulus, we would be far worse off:
The data, released Monday, say the real inflation-adjusted gross domestic product was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would have been had the $787 billion stimulus package not passed in February. Also, the stimulus lowered the unemployment by between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points, according to the report.
The new figures are slightly higher than CBO’s March estimates that between 600,000 and 1.5 million jobs were saved or created by the third quarter of this year, the report said.
Keep this is mind…