Opinion: New Jobs at $100,000 a Pop?

(July 30) -- The Local Jobs for America Act proposes to spend up to $100 billion to create and save a million public and private jobs in communities this year. While a million jobs sounds like a huge number, let's look at the money spent on that task and analyze the premise.

What does it mean to "create and save"? If a person is laid off after, say, six months on the job, does this job still count as created or saved? Moreover, if you divide $100 billion by a million, you get $100,000. That's a lot of money to spend to "create or save" a single job that may or may not last.

If it goes the least efficient way, the federal government could just pay a local governmental employer the full salary of an employee to guarantee that person a job. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, men's median earnings in 2008 were $46,367 and women's $35,745. So $100,000 will last to pay the full salary and benefits of a median worker for a little over two years. That will guarantee that the job will not disappear at least for this length of time.

The government could do better than that by doing just about anything. For example, it could stop collecting the federal tax on employers who hire new workers for as long as those new workers are employed.

But the act gives neither definitions nor guarantees. Washington's previous efforts didn't accomplish much. Just look at the state of the economy in spite of a budget deficit topping $1.4 trillion this year.

The feds would probably say: have the cash, dear locals, and spend it the way you see fit. But that is the equivalent of American provisional authorities traveling to Iraq with a suitcase of cash at the end of the Second Gulf War. No accountability. All the locals would need to do is to create a job that lasts a few months, or even to say that they saved a job (how do you check that fact?) and they are bleeping golden. They will be able to use the rest of the money for their pet projects or to enhance their own benefits, like the Bell, Calif., city manager did. How does an official jet or a mayor's limo instead of a nurse sound? How about a limo driver instead of a cop?

The money will go someplace, obviously, and therefore stimulate the economy. They might even create and save some jobs. But the number will be much lower than a million. And if it is, the arithmetic changes. If you think that $100,000 per job created is high, how about $500,000 or a cool million bucks?

Which raises the question: Could $100 billion best be spent to buy a smarter and more accountable Congress?

Mark Budman's semiautobiographical novel "My Life at First Try" complements a successful career writing short stories for publications such as Mississippi Review, Virginia Quarterly and The London Magazine. Read his blog on Red Room.