Phil Mattera of Good Jobs First has an interesting critique of the most recent Recovery Act job counts. Among his concerns, Mattera wonders why so many ARRA contract recipients continue to claim that they’ve created absolutely  no jobs connected with their stimulus dollars – even though, in some cases, the projects are far along to completion. He counts over 8,000 recipients who say they have added zero new jobs to the workforce, even after excluding those that have completed less than 50% of their work or have yet to receive funds.

This excellent bit of research piqued our curiosity, so we called up Cheryl Arvidson, Assistant Director of Communications for the Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board (RAT Board). Surprise! She was able to provide a perfectly straightforward answer. Better yet, the problem should be rectified soon.

As Arvidson explained to us, the Recovery Act only required reporting of jobs that were created specifically at the entity that was given the contract – not by any subcontractors.  So, she explained, if one organization subcontracted all of the actual work for a project, that contract would show zero jobs, even if hundreds of people were put to work on the project. (Arvidson noted that this applies to contracts, but not to grants, for which any subcontracted workers would be reported.)

Arvidson was also happy to report that the Office of Management and Budget has recently issued a note of rulemaking that will change this oversight going forward, taking effect permanently on October 1^st. Unfortunately, the change will only apply to contracts that were newly let on July 1^st or after, which means that all of the existing contracts still completing work via subcontracted employees will be showing up as zero-jobs reporters. Nor does this change alone address all of Mattera’s concerns, and we suggest you read his work.