Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Cold Comfort

The economy is still lagging and unemployment is still too high, but the CBO points out that it could have been a whole lot worse.

The massive stimulus package boosted real GDP by up to 4.5 percent in the second quarter of 2010 and put up to 3.3 million people to work, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.

CBO’s latest estimate indicates that the stimulus effort, which remains a political hot potato ahead of the November congressional elections, may have prevented the sluggish U.S. economy from contracting between April and June.

Which, in layman’s terms, means that without the stimulus, we’d have been a lot worse off.

HT to digby.