Stimulus saved 250,000 teaching jobs

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama's economic stimulus measure has saved or created at least 250,000 jobs in education, an administration official said Monday.

Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's chief economic adviser, said that preliminary data based on reporting by recipients shows one quarter million "direct" teacher jobs were created and funded through spending provided by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus bill.

"Direct jobs are only part of the story," Bernstein said. "Indirect jobs occur when that teacher who otherwise would have been laid off goes shopping and is able to spend income earnings that she otherwise wouldn't have had. That creates more economic activity."

Bernstein said the teacher jobs were "a subset of the 1 million jobs saved or created thus far through the act."

Republicans, however, scoffed at the assertions. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, told the Washington publication Roll Call, "Nobody has seen the actual report. But what we do know is more than 250,000 jobs were lost last month alone (and) 3 million have been lost just since the stimulus was signed."