Administration reports that more than 640,000 jobs were created or saved by the government’s $787 billion stimulus program are inaccurate due to flawed reporting from recipients of the money, a report from the Government Accountability Office shows. 

About 10% of those jobs – more than 58,000 – were  created as the result of projects that so far have reported spending no money, the GAO study issued on Thursday found. Another 10,000 projects that have spent a total of $965 million reported creating no jobs. As many as 10% of stimulus recipients did not report anything to the government’s Recovery Board, the agency created to track the money.

The faulty reporting was the subject of a hearing Thursday by the Senate Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, which has been investigating the use of the stimulus money.

Republican ranking member Darrell Issa (R-CA) called the administration's boasting over the 640,000 jobs number “propaganda” and said the number was still being used by officials though it has “been discredited by both public and private sources.”

“The administration continues to try to cover up its mistakes with faulty jobs claims,” he said.

Both Gene L. Dodaro, head of the GAO, and Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Board, said the data reported by thousands of stimulus recipients were flawed and the actual numbers of jobs created or saved is unknown.

“I have no doubt there are a lot of jobs being created,” Devaney said. “I think it could be above or below 640,000. Missing reports might drive the number up and misreporting might drive the number down.”

In his opening remarks, Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) touted the job creation outlined in stimulus reporting, calling the jobs trend positive and mentioning specifically the 40,000 jobs reportedly created in New York.

But Towns acknowledged that the faulty reporting would cast doubt over the stimulus package.

“The American taxpayer expects reporting to be done and done well,” Towns said. “And $787 billion weighing in the balance is far from pocket change.”

The comments and questions for the witnesses broke largely along party lines with Republicans attacking the jobs claims and Democrats defending them.

U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus, (D-OH) said while the jobs data reported by stimulus recipients may have flaws, the overall impact of the relief package is far greater than 640,000 jobs because of the multiplier effect on spending and the indirect employment created by many of the projects.

“The multiplier effect here is we are paying partial salaries through these contracts to hundreds of thousands of individuals who are participating in and support these (projects),” he said.

The GAO report recognizes that fact, acknowledging that the reporting covers only direct jobs created or saved and does not include the employment impact on suppliers or local communities.

Republican members of the committee hammered at the Obama Administration’s use of the reporting numbers, with one member saying the president was using the numbers to deflect attention from the 10.2% unemployment rate and the 15.7 million unemployed Americans.

“This whole issue is just propaganda, it’s political hyperbole,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.). “He’s one of the most eloquent presidents I’ve ever heard in my life, but the fact is all he does is campaign.”

Among the findings outlined in the GAO report or reported at the committee hearing Thursday or in the press are; reporting errors that included overstating the amount of money received, in one case by billions of dollars because of a misplaced decimal; reporting of hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars spent in Congressional Districts that don’t exist; and the reporting of the amount of money received in the “jobs created or saved” field.

A report released Wednesday by the Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity said it found that for all 50 states more than $6.4 billion in stimulus money was shown as being spent and more than 28,400 jobs saved or created in 440 districts that don’t exist.

In Georgia, the Associated Press reported that one non-profit recipient of stimulus funds reported saving 935 jobs, nearly double the total number of employees. The AP also reported that the federal Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services reported saving 14,506 jobs, when in reality that number includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who simply received pay raises and benefits.

While Devaney made no bones about the flaws in the reporting data, he said the numbers represent the first attempts at transparency and the reporting issues will be fixed.

"In reality this data should serve in the long run as evidence of what transparency can achieve," he said. "In the past this data would have been scrubbed from top to bottom before its release and the agencies would never have released the information until it was perfect.."

Also included in the report was an accounting of total stimulus dollars allocated and spent. Of the $787 billion authorized by Congress, about $173 billion – 22% - has been paid out. The bulk of that money – about $130 billion – went to entitlement programs such as Medicaid and unemployment.