It’s interesting that, most of the time, the Congressional Budget Office underestimates the cost to the taxpayer when it scores spending bills, but, when it comes to estimating the number of jobs created by the stimulus, it systematically overestimates the numbers

According to the AP: “The economic stimulus law added between 1 million to 2.1 million workers to employment rolls by the end of last year, a new report released Tuesday by…the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.” And, adds the Washington Times, “the CBO also said US gross domestic product in the final quarter of 2009 was 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent higher than would have been the case without stimulus spending.”

Interestingly, on Recovery.gov one can see that the number of jobs reported “created or saved” by the stimulus is less than 600,000. That’s because, says CBO, it uses economic modeling to reach its conclusions.

But where are the jobs?

On this chart, I can’t see that the private sector has gained any jobs. In fact, it’s lost 8.7 million in two years.

UPDATE: You can comment on the CBO’s jobs estimate at The Feed.