Stimulus cash fails to create RI jobs

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI/AP) - The flow of stimulus cash into Rhode Island has not offered much relief to the record number of unemployed workers searching for new jobs in a state with 13 percent unemployment, according to state reports released this week.

Governor Donald Carcieri's office says Rhode Island has spent 16% of the roughly $511 million in Federal Funds. That has translated into creating or saving about 1,700 jobs. It also generated only 6 positions from federal contracts. That's the lowest in the nation, ranking behind even Puerto Rico.

"The Governor never really had the highest expectations that the stimulus act was going to save Rhode Island's fiscal problems," says Amy Kempe, Governor Carcieri's spokeswoman. "The stimulus act has not turned Rhode Island's economy around in any shape or form."

The figures released this week are one of the first glimpses into the effectiveness of a spending program meant to counteract one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. By law,
state governments must report on their stimulus spending every three months. The first reports to the federal government were due this month.

"A lot of stimulus money was designed to do nothing more than plug the budget holes states were facing," Kempe explained during a briefing Friday. "Very little actually goes to job creation."

Governor Carcieri had earlier written a letter to President Barack Obama before the stimulus bill passed warning the program would not create immediate job growth. He expects many of the stimulus-related jobs will be temporary.

"We're not seeing the drastic turnaround the public expected from the Stimulus Act," Kempe says.

Overall, fiscal experts estimate that Rhode Island will receive about $1.1 billion in total stimulus cash.