750,000 stimulus jobs by August - White House
Top administration official says an estimated 750,000 jobs will be saved or created by the end of the president's next 100 days.
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration estimates that the economic stimulus plan will create or save 750,000 jobs by early August, a senior administration official said on Monday.
The comments came as the administration's Council on Economic Advisers released a report that explained the methodology behind its estimates for how many jobs will be created by the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
As the administration has said previously, the report touts that the act will save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010. It also points to even bigger stimulus job creation and savings of 6.8 million jobs by the end of 2012.
On April 29, President Obama said in a press conference that 150,000 jobs had already been saved or created by stimulus, which he signed on Feb. 17.
That figure is an estimate calculated based on "conservative" factors, the official said.
The official couldn't say where the jobs were, or in which sectors of the economy. States are just now starting to report such data, according to the official.
"This thing is just now starting to hit the economy," the official said. The White House has stressed that stimulus spending is slowing the rate of job losses.
White House officials have been careful to point out that estimated jobs created and saved have merely slowed continued job losses. The unemployment rate reached 8.9 percent in April, a 25-year high.
"The accurate measurement of jobs created and saved under the recovery act is a top priority, and I will be reporting to Congress each quarter on our progress starting in August," Council chairwoman Christina Romer said in a statement.
The report acknowledges that the impact on jobs lags the impact on gross domestic product, but says that the administration uses a "conservative rule of thumb" in calculating impact on employment.
The report assumes that it takes about $92,000 of government spending to create one "job year," or one job for one year.
"This procedure is somewhat crude and does not take into account the obvious differences in wages and other costs across different types of projects and across different parts of the country," the report stated.
All recipients of stimulus funding are required to report jobs retained and created by the funds, the report said.
Earlier on Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave a speech at the Brookings Institution about how stimulus is saving teaching jobs.
"We anticipate being able to save hundreds of thousands of teaching jobs throughout the country," Duncan said. "We absolutely have to keep those teachers teaching." 
