時事新聞:美國刺激計劃減少失業人口100萬

【英文原文】

White House: Stimulus Saved or Created One Million Jobs
The White House Council of Economic Advisers said Thursday that one million more people would have been out of work in August without programs funded by the $787 billion stimulus plan.

The White House council, headed by Berkeley economist Christina Romer, said in its first report on the stimulus plan's impact that it had compared 'actual economic performance to the predictions of a plausible statistical baseline' to conclude that the stimulus plan had added 2.3 percentage points to real gross domestic product growth between April and June.

The report also used economic models to estimate that the stimulus plan had added between 600,000 and 1.1 million to employment since it was implemented. Vice President Joe Biden said in a speech last week that the plan had created or saved 750,000 jobs since it was passed.

The administration still faces its biggest test in next month's deadline for recipients of stimulus money to report how many jobs they created or saved using the money. That will provide the first direct headcount of how many people are working because of the plan.

Republican leaders have challenged the Obama Administration on the effectiveness of the stimulus, pointing to the rising unemployment rate, now at 9.7%, a 26-year high. Many businesses are still shedding jobs and the Federal Reserve Beige Book report on business conditions released earlier this week said labor market conditions remain weak around the nation.

【中文譯文】

美國白宮經濟顧問委員會週四表示，如果沒有7,870億美元刺激計劃的支持，8月份的失業人口可能會高出100萬人。

由伯克利大學經濟學家羅默(Christina Romer)擔任主席的白宮經濟顧問委員會在有關經濟刺激計劃影響的首份報告中說，它對比了實際經濟表現與可能的統計基準預測，從中得出的結論是，經濟刺激計劃讓第二季度的實際國內生產總值(GDP)增長率提高了2.3個百分點。

該報告還利用經濟模型估算出，刺激計劃自實施以來增加了60萬至110萬的就業人口。美國副總統拜登(Joe Biden)在上週的一次講話中說，該計劃自獲得通過以來已創造或保住了75萬份崗位。

奧巴馬政府仍將在下月的最後期限面臨最大的考驗，屆時刺激資金的接受方將公佈它們通過這筆資金創造或保住了多少工作。這將是首次直接提供因這項計劃而得到工作的人數。

共和黨領導人一直質疑奧巴馬政府刺激措施的效果，他們稱失業率已達到9.7%，創出了26年來的新高。許多企業仍在裁員，美國聯邦儲備委員會(Federal Reserve)本週初發布的有關企業狀況的黃皮書稱，全美勞動力市場狀況依然疲弱。