It created a few million jobs and shaved a few percentage points off the
unemployment rate. But most important, it kept a bad situation from getting a lot worse.
Lots of academic, nonpartisan evidence reveals the Recovery Act created or saved millions of jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, for example, just released a report finding that at its height about a year ago, the act created (taking the midrange of their estimates) around 2.5 million jobs, and shaved around 1.