HOW RECOVERY AWARD RECIPIENTS CALCULATE JOBS
Recipients of Recovery Act contracts, grants, and loans are required to report quarterly on the number of jobs paid for with Recovery funds. The method or formula for calculating jobs was simplified after the first round of recipient reporting.
How did the job estimate guidance change?
- The initial guidance captured jobs for a period of time longer than a quarter (February through September). The new guidance captures jobs for a single quarter (e.g., October through December). In addition, the new guidance eliminates the distinction between a job created and a job retained. Jobs are now simply based on the number of hours worked in a quarter that were paid for by Recovery funds.
It does not matter if the hours were worked by a person who was newly hired, a person whose job was saved by the Recovery Act, or a person who is in an existing position that is now being funded by the Recovery Act.
In December 2009, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the changes in guidance to align with the recommendations of the Government Accountability Office. OMB believes the new formula will help improve the overall quality of recipient reporting.
The Math
If a normal full-time schedule is 40 hours a week, multiply 40 hours x 52 weeks = 2,080 Total Hours per year
Divide 2,080 Total Hours by 4 to equal 520 regular quarterly hours.
If two full-time employees each worked 520 hours (1,040 hours) for the quarter and another half-time employee worked 260 hours, the Total Hours for the three employees is 1300 (520 + 520 + 260 = 1300).
Divide 1300 by 520 to equal 2.5 Recovery funded jobs during that quarter.
The revisions are detailed in the Office of Management and Budget's 
Memo M-10-08.
Recipient Reporting page
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