On August 24, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its latest economic impact report of the Recovery Act, showing that the bill lowered the unemployment rate between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points and raised real gross domestic product (GDP) between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent. The CBO report also noted that the cost of the Recovery Act had been revised to $814 billion from a previous estimate in February 2010 of $862 billion. This new cost estimate is still higher than the $787 billion cost assigned to the bill when it was passed in February 2009. Additionally, the administration released its own report on August 24 highlighting how the Recovery Act has increased investment into a number of new technological areas including solar power, high speed rail and broadband.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee released its own report late last week showing that almost 93 percent of stimulus-funded bridge and highway projects nationwide were under contract, while work has begun on 89.5 percent of projects. Specifically, of the $38 billion provided for highways, transit and wastewater projects, $35.1 billion had been put out for bids on more than 19,000 projects as of July 31. State by state results can be
found here, with Maine, New Hampshire, Utah and Wyoming, reporting that work has started on 100 percent of projects. Additionally, the report noted that all but
nine states had started work on 100 percent of their w
ater and wastewater infrastructure projects.