FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30,  2010

CONTACT:

“The economic stimulus bill has done a lot to help turn our economy around and create or save millions of jobs.  According to a number of respected economists and macroeconomic forecasters, the bill saved between 1 and 3 million jobs, reduced unemployment significantly from what it would otherwise have been, and expanded our economy.  I am proud to have helped enact this much-needed legislation.

“What is less well understood is the impact that the stimulus bill has had at the state and local level.  Information on the impact that the bill has had on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can be found at recovery.pa.gov.  The impact is substantial – nearly $30 billion dollars in contracts, grants, loans, tax cuts, and assistance to state and local governments as well as millions of individuals.

“My staff has prepared the following map showing some of the local institutional recipients of federal funding from the stimulus bill – in and close to the 14th Congressional District.  I hope it gives you a better idea of the impact that the stimulus bill has had in our region.  Bear in mind, however, that most of the stimulus funding coming to the 14th District -- like nearly $20 billion of the $26 billion in stimulus money coming to Pennsylvania – consists of benefits or tax breaks for individuals and businesses and isn’t represented on this map.”

More than a million workers in Pennsylvania received additional or extended unemployment insurance benefits as a result of the stimulus bill.  Unemployment in Allegheny County has been hovering at or above 50,000 people in recent months (that’s an unemployment rate of over 8 percent).

The Commonwealth’s Medical Assistance program continued to provide health care coverage to more than 2 million Pennsylvanians thanks to the $4 billion in stimulus funding the Commonwealth received.  Without that assistance the program would have had to terminate this safety net program for tens of thousands of low-income, elderly, and disabled individuals.  Nearly 200,000 people are enrolled in the Medical Assistance program in Allegheny County.

Nearly 5 million households in Pennsylvania – 95 percent of working families in the state – received a tax cut of up to $800 on their 2009 federal income taxes under the stimulus bill’s Making Work Pay tax credit, and they’ll get the credit again in 2010.  237,000 of those households (containing 540,000 people) are in the 14th District.

2.6 million Pennsylvania residents living on Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Railroad Retirement, or veterans’ benefits – including more than 80,000 in the 14th District – received a one-time payment of $250 last year.

The families of over half a million children in the Commonwealth qualified for the expanded Child Tax Credit (worth up to $1,000) included in the stimulus bill.

More than 1 million households in Pennsylvania were protected from paying higher taxes under the federal Alternative Minimum Tax as a result of the stimulus bill. 

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