Teachers benefiting from federal stimulus

The best symbol of the $787 billion federal stimulus program turns out not to be a construction worker in a hard hat but rather a classroom teacher saved from a layoff.

The Obama administration on Friday released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half -- 325,000 -- were in education. Most were teachers' jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.

Although the stimulus was sold in large part as a public works program, only about 80,000 of the jobs that were claimed Friday were in construction.

Hard hats could surpass teachers next year, as more construction projects get underway. In Florida, for instance, one of the biggest infrastructure projects is a plan to build the Indian Street Bridge in Martin County.

But with a big, complex project like that, it takes awhile before construction can start. That project, which will cost more than $72 million, claims to have saved or created just one job so far.

The jobs announced Friday were created by about $159 billion in grants, loans and contracts made available to the states. About $37 billion of that amount has been paid out so far.

The Obama administration said the jobs were evidence that the stimulus was on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

"There is strong and mounting evidence that the recovery act is putting people back to work," Vice President Joe Biden said at a news conference in Washington.

The figures should be taken with a grain of salt, though. They come from reports submitted by more than 130,000 recipients of contracts, grants and loans that were published on the government's website, www.recovery.gov. But officials expect there to be errors; the first reports of federal contracts this month contained some filings that overstated or understated jobs.

The jobs reports came a day after new figures showed the economy grew by 3.5 percent during the last quarter, ending the longest economic contraction since World War II. But while many economists credited the stimulus with spurring some of that growth, many in Washington have raised doubts about the stimulus program's effectiveness at creating jobs.

Republicans have cited the high unemployment figure, at 9.8 percent, as proof of the failure of the stimulus, which they overwhelmingly opposed. Democrats said that the recession was more severe than most economists predicted and credited the stimulus with helping avert a second Great Depression.

The House Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, questioned what had happened to the many private-sector jobs that the administration had promised to create. "While Washington keeps spending and piling more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren," he said in a statement Friday, "out-of-work families keep asking, 'Where are the jobs?'"

A boost from California

Sensitive to such criticisms, the Obama administration invited a marquee Republican to the White House to praise the stimulus: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, whose state has faced perhaps the most severe budget crisis in the nation.

"Some of our colleagues are saying that it hasn't done much, or was a waste of money," Schwarzenegger said, sharing the stage with Biden. "Well, I would dispute that."

He said the stimulus had created or saved more than 100,000 jobs in California, the most in the nation, more than half of which -- 62,000 -- were the jobs of teachers, professors and school administrators.

In Minnesota, about $2.59 billion in federal stimulus spending since February has created about 14,309 jobs, according to a report issued Friday by the Minnesota Management and Budget Office.

The report found that education, health and human services and the transportation sector had the greatest job gains.

The stimulus plan so far has provided Minnesota agencies, businesses and institutions with $163.3 million in contracts, $2.4 billion in grants and $28 million in loans.

The largest award, to Minnesota's Department of Transportation, was for $362 million. The University of Minnesota received $182.9 million, while the Department of Commerce got $139.5 million for various projects, including energy conservation and weatherization projects.

Staff writer Dee DePass contributed to this report.