The impact of the stimulus can be measured in many ways. One of the easiest may be to look at per capita stimulus spending in the 12 community types.
According to this method, the three biggest winners in Patchwork Nation are the big-city “Industrial Metropolis”; the “Boom Towns,” which experienced rapid growth in the early 2000s; and the “Minority Central” counties, which have large African-American populations. Each of these community types has been awarded more than $1,000 per capita.
Makes sense to me given that cities and minorities have been disproportionately impacted by the Great Recession.
But as the black jobless rate shows, stimulus spending has had no measurable impact on assisting those most in need.
So, exactly where did this money go?
Now, fast forward 24 hours. I’m on Amtrak’s Keystone train to Harrisburg to attend the monthly meeting of the Pennsylvania Stimulus Oversight Commission.
While on board, I read the first quarterly report on creating opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses in the expenditure of stimulus monies in the Keystone State.
Talk about missed opportunities.
The total value of stimulus contracts awarded to minority business enterprises is $25,034,679 or 1.7 percent of the $1,455,500,862 spent to date.
I asked Pennsylvania’s Chief Implementation Officer, James Creedon, for a demographic breakdown of the MBE awards. Creedon said the data will not be available until the second quarterly report, which will be released at the Commission’s May 13 meeting.
On my train ride back to Philadelphia, one data point stuck in my head: 100 percent of transportation and infrastructure contracts have been awarded.
