Stimulus Benefits in Georgia

        The majority of the economic news we see and hear relates to the national benefits of the Stimulus Package, however, what we are missing are the local benefits from these federal funds. While there were many beneficiaries of federal stimulus dollars within Georgia, I will focus on two: the Savannah River Site (SRS) and the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). A high priority for the stimulus package was for transportation improvements and a majority of the package addressed this area. While these two departments are different in nature what they share in common is that the stimulus funds were an effective source for revitalizing the local economy. The SRS is owned by the Department of Energy and is responsible for processing radioactive liquid waste stored at the site as well as environmental cleanup. The Georgia Department of Transportation is the organization responsible for maintaining and developing all state and federal highways in the state of Georgia.  GDOT was responsible for 70 percent of the funds while the remaining 30 percent was divided among the state’s Metropolitan Planning Organization and designated rural areas. The SRS was awarded $1.6 billion and GDOT was awarded $932 million in stimulus funds which had a major impact on both local economic output and employment. Output was multiplied by the spending and investing of stimulus funds. The SRS spent $282 million between April 2009 and October 2010 and this spending had a regional impact of about $525 million in regional output as well as an additional $81 million in government tax revenue. GDOT’s expenditures totaled $3.1 billion which had an economic impact of $5.86 billion which translates into every dollar of highway expenditure generated an economic impact of $1.89. In addition to increased output, stimulus spending helped create more jobs. The additional spending at the SRS helped create and/or save roughly 4,600 jobs. For every one job that was created by the SRS stimulus funds, an additional .90 job was created. At the GDOT, these expenditures also had a large impact on job creation which totaled 51,246 new jobs from 2009-2013. For every $1 million in direct highway expenditures 16.6 new jobs were created.

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