According to those whose job is to crunch the numbers and produce estimates of how much the Recovery Act affected the economy, the stimulus has served the purpose of preventing an even deeper recession.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that had the stimulus not been passed, the unemployment rate could currently be as high as 11.4 percent. Compared to what would have happened otherwise, the Recovery Act raised employment by 1.4 - 3.3 million, according to CBO.

Economic analysts in the private sector have also estimated that employment was 1.8 - 2.2 million higher in the second quarter of 2010 than it would have been without the stimulus and that the measure boosted GDP by 2.1 - 3.7 percent.

But recent articles in the top newspapers won't tell you that.

A New York Times article yesterday stated that the word “stimulus” has “taken on negative political connotations” since the Recovery Act and other measures “have failed to push unemployment down substantially”:

White House officials have strenuously avoided labeling the proposal a second stimulus plan, a phrase that has taken on negative political connotations since the original roughly $800 billion recovery plan and subsequent additions have failed to push unemployment down substantially.

They don't define their standard for “substantial” and they don't provide the independent and private estimates of the job impact, so readers are ill-equipped to evaluate their statement.

And today, a Washington Post article reports that voters “tend to think” the Recovery Act “increased deficits without improving the economy”:

Meanwhile, some Democrats questioned whether voters would be able to distinguish between the new proposals -- which the White House vows will not increase the nation's soaring budget deficit -- and last year's $814 billion stimulus package, which voters tend to think increased deficits without improving the economy.

This is the kind of reporting we'd expect to see on Fox News; we shouldn't be seeing it in the pages of the nation's most prestigious newspapers. People look to the Times and the Post not only to report on “political connotations” and public opinion, but to shed light on what, if anything, is informing those perceptions. Both of these articles failed to do that.

Unless the Washington Post and the New York Times believe that the estimates from CBO and private firms are not the best option we have for assessing the impact of the stimulus, they need to mention them every time they report claims that the Recovery Act didn't work.