October 28th, 2009 by Reed Allmand 
According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Texas companies and local governments say they’ve saved or created about 1,100 jobs with stimulus-funded contracts created by the $787 billion state stimulus package; but many critics say the self-reported results are suspect.
The article said:
“The jobs include many instances in which construction companies assert that stimulus contracts allowed them to retain employees who otherwise would have been fired. As such, the report may further fuel criticism that self-reported government measures of the stimulus’s impact are unreliable. Nationwide, the government estimates that stimulus contracts have saved or created 30,383 jobs.”
Critics of the stimulus program for Texas businesses say that proof of the program’s results should show as a decrease in job losses. However, job losses have increased and the unemployment rate has risen from 8 percent when the stimulus program began to 9.8 percent in September. Other analysts have noted that even in the housing industry and the government sector where a lot of the stimulus money went, contractors have faced an increased number of job losses and many of the jobs created are not long-term.
About Reed Allmand
Allmand's vision is rooted in his own financially precarious childhood in Abilene "My father always had difficulty holding a job and supporting our family, so after my parents divorced when I was 12, my sister and I got jobs to help make ends meet," he recalls. "I remember what it felt like as a child to worry that our car would be repossessed or home foreclosed on."
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