Minnesota Lawyer
A new report claims that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — which promised to pump $131 billion into the American construction industry — has done little to help an industry that is “hemorrhaging jobs.”
“So far, the ARRA has sent money to all corners of the construction industry, from residential building construction to highway projects to water and sewer line maintenance,” writes the report’s author, Chris Thorman of Software Advice (a company that offers free advice on selecting the right software for different industries).
Thorman, who writes a blog about construction estimating software, used information from Recovery.gov’s quarterly report on stimulus funds to write the report, which compares the number of jobs lost in the construction industry to the number of stimulus construction jobs created.
According to the report, Minnesota was awarded $748 million in construction stimulus funds and has received $440 million. The money has created 2,077 construction jobs in the state, at a cost of $211,734 per job.
Nationwide, the stimulus act has created or saved 76,214 construction jobs nationwide at a total cost of $15.8 billion since the bill was signed into law — which translates to $222,491 per construction job, the report concludes.
“Jobs are being created and saved, but nowhere near a rate that will allow the stimulus bill to claim victory over construction unemployment,” Thorman writes. “At the current rate of approximately 8,500 construction jobs created/saved a month nationwide, it would take the stimulus bill by itself 82 months to bring construction unemployment down to 2008 levels.”
