Stimulus saves or creates 6,598 Utah jobs

The stimulus package created or saved 6,598 jobs in Utah so far this year, the White House said Friday.

But they came at a cost. The government created or saved only one Utah job for every $95,000 it spent in stimulus funds here.

The White House said that Utah recipients of stimulus money spent $626.3 million of the $1.5 billion made available to them so far, or about 42 percent of it.

Nationally, the White House said the stimulus created or saved 640,329 jobs. That means just over 1 percent of them were in Utah. Since Utah has just under 1 percent of the nation's population, that means it had essentially a proportional share of created or saved jobs.

A Deseret News analysis of White House data shows that the lion's share of the Utah jobs saved or created were in education and construction.

Here's where some of the stimulus job were created in Utah:

 At least 3,046 were in education for teachers, college professors, administrators, researchers and others.

 At least 1,029 were road construction-related jobs, both by the state and local governments.

 At least 584 were mass-transit related jobs, including construction of new TRAX lines and buying and maintaining new vehicles.

 At least 227 were for construction of other government facilities.

 At least 441 jobs were related to providing job training and job-finding services.

 At least 274 jobs were related to upgrading public housing, mostly by tribal governments.

 At least 110 jobs were related to health services.

 101 jobs were related to moving mill tailings from near Moab.

 At least 70 jobs were related to help better weatherize residences.

Of the 6,598 Utah jobs saved or created, 4,106 of them came from stimulus money that went to state agencies; the remainder were from dollars channeled through federal agencies.

A quick review of some of the projects, which are listed at recovery.gov, may raise questions about some of the job preservation or creation claims.