White House Claims ‘Stimulus’ Saved/Created 650,000 Jobs (but it imported 1,125,000 foreign workers at same time)

A few minutes ago, the White House issued a new report claiming that the Stimulus Bill earlier this year has created or saved approximately 650,000 U.S. jobs.

Unfortunately, another government program — immigration — completely wiped out any overall benefit the stimulus jobs could have been for the American working man and woman.

All of us need to point out to every local newspaper, every Member of Congress and every one of our co-workers and family that the federal government has imported more than a million working-age foreign citizens this year to negate every positive impact the stimulus could have had for U.S. workers.

Yes, we are happy to see the news that far fewer H-1B visas have been issued this year for foreign tech workers than usual. But the H-1B visas — as destructive as they are to some occupations — are only a tiny fraction of the flow of working-age foreign citizens into the U.S. each year.

Here is what CNN just reported about the Stimulus jobs:

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — The largest stimulus program in the nation’s history has created or saved at least 650,000 state and local jobs, according to a report released by the Obama administration on Friday.
Based on approximately $150 billion in spending from the $787 billion recovery package, the tally is the first broad, concrete look at the stimulus program’s impact on the economy. The numbers are drawn from tens of thousands of reports from state and local recipients as well as private companies.

NumbersUSA has tried since last November to persuade the news media to monthly report how many working-age foreign citizens are getting first-time work permits from the feds.

It remains the great national secret because the U.S. news media — from the liberal to the conservative wing — won’t report these facts.

So, NumbersUSA once again will stand alone in telling you the inconvenient truth from the latest U.S. government statistics:

Each month, the feds give out about 160,000 first-time permanent and temporary work permits to working-age foreign citizens.

The 160,000 working-age foreign citizens are divided almost equally into those getting permanent work permits through green cards and those getting temporary work permits each month.

Of the immigrants aged 18-65 who get permanent work permits each month, about 35,000 of them were already working in the U.S. on previous temporary work permits.

Thus, the NET figure is 160,000 minus 35,000 equals about 125,000 foreign citizens who are getting a work permit for the first time each month.

Click here to see the full calculations and sources for these figures.

The bottom line is that while this White House has focused on saving or creating 650,000 U.S. jobs, that same White House and about 90% of the Members of the U.S. Congress have allowed the federal bureaucracy to give out permanent and temporary work permits to about 1 million one hundred and twenty-five thousand first-time foreign workers thus far during 2009.

The White House said the actual number of jobs created so far is likely closer to 1 million, since its report on stimulus job creation only focused on $150 billion of the $339 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds spent so far.
— CNN

Even if you accept the White House’s claim of having created/saved 1 million jobs, the feds have wiped out all the benefit to the American worker by giving work permits to 1.125 million new foreign workers in 2009.

Until Pres. Obama and Congress pass an Immigration Suspension bill, they are going to be throwing hundreds of billions of dollars down a rat hole as they create jobs in the economy that don’t even keep up with the immigrants they are bringing into the country.

I hope you will pass along your thoughts about this to the President and to your three Members of Congress.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA