Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Auto Industry Bailout Saved 1.14 Million Jobs

This comes from the people who know about such things, the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.

Government assistance to General Motors and Chrysler enabled orderly bankruptcy proceedings and led to the saving of more than 1.14 million jobs in 2009 alone, according to a new study from the Center for Automotive Research, an Ann Arbor-based nonprofit research organization.

The research also showed the bailout averted huge unemployment and welfare payments and as a result is already more than a quarter of the way to break-even status.

CAR researchers modeled the impact of the $80 billion in federal aid to General Motors, Chrysler, GMAC and Chrysler Financial using actual economic performance for 2009 and 2010 to date. In addition to the jobs saved in 2009, 314,400 more jobs have been saved so far in 2010.

The report says the government intervention prevented additional personal income losses of $71.9 billion for 2009 and $24.6 billion for 2010. The net impact to the federal government — in terms of changes in transfer payments such as unemployment compensation and welfare, social security receipts and personal income taxes — was $21.6 billion and $7 billion in 2010.


I still think this could have been sold as a triumph for the Democrats, but because they let the Republicans set the tone of the message and then ran scared from poll numbers - call it a sales opportunity lost. Ah well, we have the jobs and the industry is growing again - just pray the Republicans don't tank the economy in their effort to defeat Obama in 2012.