Is Obama's Stimulus Working?

Some interesting GDP analysis from EPI:

Despite the overall contraction, the fingerprints of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act could be seen in some aspect of today’s report. Federal government spending grew at an 11% rate in the quarter, adding roughly 0.8% to overall GDP. State and local government spending grew at a 2.4% annual rate, the fastest growth since the middle of 2007. It is clear that the large amount of state aid contained in the ARRA made this growth possible.

Furthermore, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable personal income rose by 3.2% in the quarter, after rising by only 1% in the previous quarter. A large contribution to this increase was made by the Making Work Pay tax credit passed in conjunction with the ARRA, as this was the first full quarter that the credit was in effect. Inflation-adjusted transfer payments (including a one-time payment to Social Security recipients)  rose at an annual rate of over 6% in the quarter as well...

The consensus of macroeconomic forecasters is that ARRA contributed roughly 3% to annualized growth rates in the second quarter. This means that absent its effects, economic performance would have resembled that of the previous three quarters, when the economy contracted at an average annual rate of 4.9%. In short, the recovery act turned this quarter’s economic performance from disastrous to merely bad. This is no small achievement, but with even more public relief and investments, the U.S. economy could do much better.

And the good news is that the two-year time-table for the stimulus to take full effect means that more is to come. The bad news is that the private sector is still in a hell of a hole and the debt is exploding. Ambers' take on the politics is here. Megan's response:

• Happiness is relative
• This number will be revised, probably downward
• Consumer saving continues to rise, and probably will for a while
• Employment isn't going to recover for quite some time