“Lives Touched” is a figure that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) uses to track the amount of people who have been positively affected by the Recovery Act funds. This total would include people who have been provided full time employment (i.e. saved and created jobs) through the Recovery Act and people who at some point have supported a project funded by the Recovery Act.
In other words, the administration has stumbled upon another way to inflate their job numbers. They were already reporting on those saved or created, but will now include ‘people who at some point have supported a project. |