The administration has decided to change the way in which it counts the number of jobs affected by stimulus spending. Previously, it used the measure “saved or created,” which counts jobs that would have been lost or would never have existed without stimulus spending. Since we don’t know for sure what would have happened without the stimulus, the measure depended heavily on subjective projections.

The new measure tracks the number of jobs funded by the stimulus, a much more objective count. However, it isn’t particularly useful for gauging the stimulus’ effectiveness. The government is just one employer among many; the number of new employees it has signals the strength of the economy no more than the number of new hires at Google or Citibank. Additionally, the fact that the government funded a job doesn’t mean that the new employee creates anything of value. For example, spending $1.1 million dollars to fix a guard rail in a little used stretch of Oklahoma highway doesn’t add much value to the economy. Google could probably put that $1.1 million to use more effectively.