Obama’s economists in January 2009: with the stimulus, US unemployment of about 7% by late 2010. It was 9.5%
Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein9 January 2009 · report “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”
«As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.»
2010 Q4: 9.5% against about 7% forecast with the plan and 8.8% without it.
Without the plan they expected 8.8%; the fact was above that too. The slump was deeper than it looked in January 2009.
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Before the stimulus passed, the new president’s advisers estimated unemployment with and without it. Unemployment rose above both.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the timeline the small dark dot is when it was said, the empty ring the deadline, the ring in the stamp’s colour when it happened; a line in that colour along the axis is the delay, a dashed line to «not yet» means it has not happened by today.
- Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, report “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan” quote
«As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of a plan.»
Romer & Bernstein, The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, 09.01.2009
- What happened did not come true
2010 Q4: 9.5% against about 7% forecast with the plan and 8.8% without it.
- 2010 Q4 % of labour force
9.5% (Oct 9.4, Nov 9.8, Dec 9.3)
- Peak % of labour force
10.0% in October 2009
Quote: Romer and Bernstein report of 9 January 2009 (web.archive.org copy). Fact: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, series LNS14000000; Q4 is the mean of October, November and December. Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
A conditional forecast: a package of similar size passed in February 2009. Late-2008 GDP was later revised sharply down. The miss alone does not show whether the package helped. Unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009.
A question for this picture
How do you test a package when the starting point itself was wrong?