WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's jobs package could lift economic growth by one to three percentage points in 2012, add well over one million jobs and lower the unemployment rate by at least half a percentage point, judging by early estimates.
It might not exactly deliver the "jolt" Obama claimed in his speech to Congress Thursday night, but it would be enough to make a difference.
The basic idea is to give a sufficient boost to get the stalled recovery over the hump where households, banks and businesses have paid down more of their debt loads and regained the confidence to start spending, lending and hiring again.
Once demand picks up, the private sector will kick in and begin hiring, and the fiscal props can fall away.
It would deliver the economic medicine prescribed in recent weeks by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the International Monetary Fund to prevent a worrisome slowdown in global economic growth from turning into recession.
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