Obama Stimulus Check

In a recent interview, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that the federal government will give stimulus check »”>stimulus checks to the struggling schools in the country. These funds will come from the stimulus package that President Obama signed. It aims to expand the school days, give credit to all the teachers who are doing great in their jobs, fire those who needs to be fired, and measure the ability and the performance of the American kids compared to their peers in China and in India.

For the past decades, it has been proven that financial aid alone is not enough to drive the improvement of the schools. Secretary Duncan gave the District of Columbia as an example. In this area, most of the students have scores that are almost near the lowest scores in math tests as well as national reading. This is the situation even if the schools are spending a lot of their time focusing on each and every student compared to the suburban counterparts of the district.

Duncan even said that the District of Columbia has “more money than God” for several decades now. Yet the result is still devastating. The Secretary said that the Obama stimulus checks for the education sector will start coming in after a month up to 45 days. This would target the states as well as the local school systems.

Secretary Duncan mentioned that the challenge in this task is not at the intellectual aspect but in the political courage instead.

The Obama Stimulus Check law will apportion a lot more than $100 billion to childhood education programs, public schools, and universities all over the country. This will keep teachers in their jobs as well as educate those children who have low salaries. As the secretary of Education, Arne Duncan is entitled to make changes that hopefully, will produce positive results. This includes longer number of school days which he claims essential so that students can make up for the time wasted.

Continued from Economic Myths Part1 and Economic Myths Part 2

But as my profound and well informed critic decided to make an unfavourable comparison between the US and Germany let’s look at some other facts. Unemployment stands at 9.4 per cent in Germany against 4.9 per cent in the US — even though the US is in recession*. This unemployment rate, given the current economic situation, is a tribute to America’s flexible labour markets. Per capita GDP in 2000, adjusted for purchasing power parity, was $US23,400 for Germany but $36,200 for the US.

Of course, per capita GDP figures can be deceiving with per capita consumption of goods and services being a far better measure of living standards. Using this measure America still led France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Holland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, UK — and Germany. A few examples should ram the point home: 53 per cent of American households had dishwashers against 34 per cent for Germany; for VCRs it was 83 per cent to 42 per cent, for microwave ovens it was 86 per cent to 36 per cent. American households led in every category. Looking at it in term of goods per 100 people we find that America led German for cars 57 to 49; for phones it was 63 to 49. For cell phones it was 128 per 1000 persons against 42.8, for TVs it was 776 against 550.

It would be pointlessly repetitive to continue in this vein. Whichever way one looks at the economic picture, American incomes have not been falling. That’s not to suggest that all is rosy. I have severe reservations about the future, believing that America will enter serious economic waters unless a healthy savings rate is restored. But that is not what my anonymous critic was about.

*It needs to be said that this unemployment figure does not include those who dropped out of the work force because they couldn’t find jobs. However, exactly the same can be said for Germany’s official unemployment rate.

In Part I mainly dealt with the myth that American living standards have been falling for than 20 years. I shall now deal with my anonymous critic’s fallacies and myths concerning jobs, productivity, capital and depressions. Naturally, it goes without saying that none of these subjects can be given the attention they deserve in a short article. They can, however, be dealt with to the extent of demolishing common misconceptions.

My anonymous critic argues that it’s “…the same old nonsense that productivity will create an increasing standard of living,” completely oblivious to the fact that working hours in themselves tell us nothing about productivity. (Readers will recall that I dealt with American working hours in Part I).

Continued in Economic Myths Part 4.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is the name of the act that relates to the stimulus package that has just been passed by congress. The finer details have already been checked with a fine tooth comb and it is now possible to comment on whether and if so how the package relates to an Obama stimulus check.

Looking closely at the act, the only part in the whole stimulus act that relates to an Obama stimulus check in any way is in the form of a credit that will be given to the tax payers. The credit will be lower value of:

• $500; or
• 6.2 percent of the total income of the taxpayer.

Therefore, each taxpayer who earns $8,065 or more will get a credit worth $500. On the other hand, those who earn a yearly amount lower than $8,065 will receive a stimulus check from Obama for an amount equal to 6.2% of their total annual income. So for example, somebody who earns $4,000 per year will get a check for $248. For joint filers, the figures can be doubled. So they can get a maximum of $1000 or 6.2% of their joint income if it is less than $16,130.

As mentioned in the earlier post titled “Obama Stimulus Check“, there are small classes of people who will receive a payment. Please read that post to get a full picture. Youcan read that post be clicking here.

Please note that before you are entitled to an Obama Stimulus check, you must file your taxes first. There are various companies today offering free services so that you can get a tax refund in just a few days.