The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the stimulus provided jobs to between 1.2 million and 2.8 million people during the first three months of this year.  The stimulus also raised GDP by as much as 4.2%.

Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent

Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points

Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million, and

Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been 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.)

You can read the full CBO post here.

There have been many indicators that the U.S. is slowly pulling out of the current recession.  December 2009 was the first month since December 2007 that more jobs were added to the economy than lost.  Unemployment went down last month from 10 to 9.7 percent, and jobs were added in the health, education and professional services, and retail employment sectors.  The major factor the unemployment rate didn’t drop even more was because of the job losses in the housing sector, which continues to decline because of the housing bubbles collapse.

The following graph released from the Office of the Speaker was compiled with information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  The graph shows the worst of the job loses were during the Bush Administration and jobs began to almost immediately recover after Obama was elected.  There were more jobs lost than added under Bush and more jobs added than lost under Obama.  Obama implemented stimulus spending to encourage economic growth that created new jobs and averted further job losses in most sectors.  The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, so it recovers slower than net jobs added, which is why it is only now starting to recover.  With the current rate of job recovery we should start seeing a slow decline in the unemployment rate over the next few months.

The Whitehouse.gov website reports the “nation’s fleet of wind plants grew by 39% last year alone.”  The industry was expected to lose approximately 50% of its plants and jobs during the year of 2008.  Because of stimulus spending the industry was able avoid a 50% decline.  They instead grew the green wind energy sector by 39%.

The White House website says, “America’s wind power fleet will avoid an estimated 62 million tons of greenhouse gases annually, equivalent to taking 10.5 million cars off the road.”  With further commitment to the clean energy the United States should see a direct benefit by adding green jobs and by reducing the impact the country has on climate change.

Early last year, before [ARRA], the industry anticipated that in 2009 wind power development might drop by as much as 50% from 2008 levels, with equivalent job losses.  The clear commitment by the President to create clean energy jobs and the swift implementation of ARRA incentives by the Administration in mid-summer reversed the situation. Recovery Act incentives spurred the growth of construction, operations and maintenance, and management jobs, helping the industry to save and create jobs in those sectors and shine as a bright spot in the economy.