Still probably right but for the wrong reasons
Posted By Russ Roberts On June 7, 2009 @ 10:06 am In Stimulus | Comments Disabled
Innocent Bystanders has updated the graph [1] (HT: Zev Fredman) using the May numbers:
It's wrong (as I've pointed out before [3]) because they've plotted the April '09 number above the point on the horizontal axis that represents the second quarter of 2009. The second quarter of 2009 will be the average of April, May, and June. June isn't out yet. The May '09 number is plotted at almost the third quarter of 2009–a number we won't know until October.
Now I'm pretty confident that the second quarter number will be even worse than the April '09 number. So the gap between "With Recovery Plan" and "Without Recovery Plan" will be even larger. But until July (when we'll have the June numbers and thereby can calculate the second quarter of 2009, this is not a legitimate picture of the recovery's failure.
Meanwhile, as of May 29, a grand total of $44 billion of the $787 billion stimulus has been spent.
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URLs in this post:
[1] Innocent Bystanders has updated the graph: http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/the-may-unemployment-numbers-are-here-and-worse-than-predicted/
[2] Image: http://cafehayek.com/images/old/6a00d834518ccc69e201156fd987a0970c-800wi
[3] I've pointed out before: http://cafehayek.com/2009/05/bad-prediction-bad-graphics.html
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