[CaptainHaplo]

Platypus,

I can't "show you the data" on what they based the claim on, but I can give you some info on where it was derived from. I think I posted about this previously.

I have a friend who owns his own business. He got an order that came with a single page questionaire from some "department" of the government - it wasn't labor, I just can't recall the name of it right now. I will check and get it for you if needed.

Anyway, the form just asked how many jobs were created, how many jobs were saved with the order, how many jobs were sustained by the order, etc. The firm placing the order needed him to fill it out because they were using stimulus money to pay for it. His business was doing fine without the order, so he answered as honestly as he knew how, and put 0 for "saved", "sustained" and 0 for "created" as well.

A couple of weeks later, he got a phone call from someone with that same "department" that told him he obviously misunderstood the questions because he filled them out all wrong. After he assured them that his business was firm without the order, they accepted that no jobs had been saved. They struggled over the "creation" part a litle, continually asking him if he had hired anyone during the time the order came in to when it was filled. He had, though the position (sales rep) had nothing to do with filling the order, yet they insisted that met the requirements for a "job created" by the order. The real sticky one was "jobs sustained" - because they wanted to know how many people "touched" the order, for the secretary who answered the phone, to the person who set the box on the dock for the delivery carrier to pick up. According to this department's criteria, every person's job involved was "sustained" because it took them some time - from seconds to hours - to do the job.

Needless to say, the criteria for what amounts to a "sustained" job are set in such a manner that no matter what the real result was, the numbers look good for those that want them to.