Over in the Corner, Kevin Williamson finds a stimulus project for interpretive dance that spent $762,372 and created 1.5 jobs.
That comes out to $508,248 per job.
That’s pretty bad, Kevin, but I think I may have you beat: The award to Thalle Construction Co., for “construction of upstream lock monoliths for the Kentucky Lock Addition project, Grand Rivers, KY, of the Nashville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” spent $55,180,420 to create . . . 36 jobs.
That comes out to $1,532,789.44 per job, or three times the cost per job of those interpretive dancers.
Think about it, for what we spent for those “upstream lock monoliths,” taxpayers could have hired 108 interpretive dancers.
And the General Services Administration’s stimulus contract for “renovation of an approximately 565,000 gross square foot existing office building in Washington, DC” with Grunley Construction Co. spent $86,674,319 to create 36.84 jobs. That comes out to $2,352,723.09 per job.
Overall, according to the totals on Recovery.gov, the stimulus has doled out 102,475 contracts, grants, and loans, adding up to $268,286,509,456 in funds awarded and $172,391,273,168 in funds received. (Yes, according to these figures, almost $100 billion — $95,895,236,288 — has been awarded to various entities but has not yet been used or spent.)
Contract, grant, and loan recipients report creating 555,029 jobs.
Based on the total of funds received, that comes out to $3,132,734.97 per job.