Does Anyone Ever Do the Math? New Jobs Program: $894,000/Job

Update

September 12, 2011: One day after posting the note below, a talking head on CNBC said the same thing -- Obama is wiling to spend $750,000 for a $50,000 job.

Original Post

Regarding the half-trillion dollar jobs program:

From The New York Times: CEOs say "jobs plan" won't create jobs. Does anyone ever do the math? The article says the $447 billion jobs program "could" create anywhere from 500 thousand to 2 million jobs next year. At 500,000 jobs that works out to $894,000/job; at 2 million jobs, it works out to $238,500. Wouldn't it be more effective to just give 4 million folks $100,000 to spend on retail for the year.

The big question: who provided the analysis that suggested as many as 2 million jobs? The same folks who said the earlier trillion dollar programs would keep unemployment rate from going above 8%?

A big thank you to the reader alerting me to this. I posted the story elsewhere but even I didn't do the math. The "500,000 to 2 million jobs" statistic was buried deep in the article. 

I can't make this stuff up.