CBO’s Estimates of ARRA’s Impact on Employment and Economic Output for the First Quarter of 2011

As required by law, CBO prepares regular reports on its estimate of the number of jobs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which is often referred to as the economic stimulus package.

In its latest report, CBO provides estimates of ARRA’s overall impact on employment and economic output in the first quarter of calendar year 2011, which differ only slightly from those presented in its previous report (issued in February 2011). CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the first quarter of calendar year 2011:

• They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product by between 1.1 percent and 3.1 percent,
• Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.6 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points,
• Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 3.3 million, and
• Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.6 million to 4.6 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers).