The economic stimulus spending in West Virginia has supposedly created or saved 2,400 jobs here. That’s a nice round figure, and one that may provide some confidence that your taxpayer dollars from the $787 billion stimulus package are working.

But figures for West Virginia and the country are probably wildly wrong.  News organizations have been poring over the job reports and finding that the numbers just don’t add up. 

Here are some examples:

The Associated Press reported that the stimulus money supposedly saved 935 jobs at Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, but only 508 people work there.   The Wall Street Journal found a Kentucky shoe store owner who said he saved nine jobs by supplying nine pairs of boots to the Army Corps of Engineers.

Some of the numbers in West Virginia look funny as well.

One Head Start preschool agency in West Virginia said it saved or created 145 jobs with a grant of $344,848, but another Head Start office reported its grants of over $822,000 saved or created just 19 jobs.

A West Virginia College reported one work study position funded with $31,422 from the stimulus.   Another college reported three work study jobs from a $27,000 grant. 

There has been considerable confusion about how the information should be tallied.  The WSJ reports that “as many as 86 percent of the jobs estimated by recipients of Head Start grants could have been inaccurately reported.” 

In some cases, the agencies spent the money on raises and counted that toward jobs saved.  The AP found that the federal office of Administration for Children and Families reported 14,506 jobs reported saved, but 9,300 were existing employees in local agencies that received raises.

West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, who voted against the stimulus, says she is skeptical of the job figures in the state.

“I’m not sure claims of 2,400 ‘created or saved’ amounts to anything worthy of applause,” Capito said in a statement, “particularly when even the 2,400 is widely viewed by experts as likely inflated.”

In fairness, measuring jobs “created or saved” is difficult.  It’s likely the agencies getting the money are just trying to fill out the government forms as best they can.  Ed DeSeve, the senior advisor to President Obama on the stimulus, told the WSJ that the goal is “to create jobs, not count them.”

But if the Obama Administration is going to take credit for creating or saving 640,000 jobs then it has to expect scrutiny. 

Another interesting question is why so many of these jobs are in the government.  When President Obama and others pushed the stimulus they said 90 percent of the jobs would be in the private sector.  That’s not happening. 

The $787 billion stimulus is the largest single expenditure in the country’s history.  But with unemployment rising and unreliable reporting of the jobs that are supposed to be saved or created, it doesn’t look like we’re getting sufficient bang for our buck.