Another Inconvenient Truth -- $300,000/Job -- Government Stimulus Job Creation -- Nothing To Do With the Bakken

October 30, 2012: $300,000/A123 job with government stimulus (best figure; it could be worse; depends "how" one counts) --

Battery maker A123 Systems vowed thousands of new jobs when it received a nearly quarter-billion-dollar stimulus grant in late 2009, but federal job-tracking figures show only a few hundred positions were created before the company joined a growing list of federally backed energy businesses that ended in bankruptcy.

The latest quarterly report on file with a federal stimulus tracking database shows just seven positions created through the grant from April to June this year. Previous quarters’ job reports contained anywhere from a handful of positions created to more than 100 new jobs.

But even when the quarterly reports are combined, a total of 408 new positions were reported under the stimulus program since 2009, amounting to more than $300,000 spent for each new job reported. [Double counting, triple counting?]

Click here for a list of DOE-backed green energy companies that went bankrupt.

I saw the linked article on A123 earlier but had not planned to post it, but:

a) a reader also saw it and sent it to me for posting; and,
b) someone sent in a comment asking if I was going have my daily global warming rant.

I wasn't going to post a global warming story (I didn't comment on the record snowfall in Appalachia this week) but I didn't want to let my readers down ... so it's posted.