The Congressional Budget Office released a report Tuesday that revealed that President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package has helped to create between 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs.
According to the CBO's report, the jobs created by the Recovery and Reinvestment Act have lowered the nation's unemployment rate between 0.3 and 0.9 percentage points.
Obama administration estimates had the number of jobs created by the stimulus package at around 640,000. The CBO's report said the administration underestimated how many jobs were actually created because it only includes reports from entities receiving federal grants, contracts or loans through the stimulus package.
Such estimates, the CBO said, don't include the jobs that were created directly as a result of tax cuts or expanded unemployment benefits that were a part of the stimulus package.
In addition, the CBO's report said that federal spending saw a jump of $100 billion since the stimulus was passed, while tax revenue saw a drop of $90 billion.
Shortly after the CBO's report was released, Vice President Joe Biden released a statement in which he said the report "is further evidence of what private forecasters and government economists have been saying: the Recovery Act is already responsible for more than 1 million jobs nationwide."
"The debate is no longer whether the Recovery Act is creating and saving jobs," Biden added, "but how we provide even more opportunities to drive growth and support American workers."
Biden promised that, in the coming months, the stimulus will help "break ground on thousands of infrastructure projects, launch multi-billion dollar broadband and high speed rail initiatives and make critical investments in our nation's schools and businesses."
The report comes just a few days before the White House is scheduled to hold a jobs summit.
The summit will bring together CEOs and small business owners, economists and financial experts, as well as representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups to, as Obama said when announcing the summit, "talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again."
The summit will take place on December 3.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.