On March 4th, the House of Representatives aproved Senate leader Harry Reid’s jobs bill, which pledges an amount of $15 billion to create and/or re-open about 1 million jobs. The House vote eventually came to 217-201, which was a much closer vote than anyone had expected. When the Senate had voted on the jobs bill in February, the numbers had tallied in at 70-28.

The 2010 Senate jobs bill that was passed will provide tax breaks and other incentives for companies hiring unemployed workers who have been jobless for at least 60 days. In greater detail, the 2010 Senate jobs bill includes 4 provisions: 1) businesses hiring unemployed workers will be exempted from Social Security payroll taxes through December of 2010, 2) a tax credit of $1,000 will be applied to businesses that can retain hired employees for one full year, 3) highway programs will be renewed, and 4) $20 billion will be deposited into a highway trust fund.

This measure could affect anywhere from 250,000 to 1 million workers. This also means that Congress is paying anywhere from $15,000 to $60,000 per job that is created and/or rescued.

With more and more manufacturing and commercial jobs being outsourced, however, the only "real" jobs being offered in the U.S. are those in the service industry. Is earning $7.00 an hour at McDonald’s as a cashier worth Congress’s $1 billion investment? If that is the case, Congress may actually end up paying more for certain jobs than they are actually worth.

There is also the issue that current unemployment in the U.S. stands at 9% or more. That is the equivalent of at least 14.9 million workers being without a job, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Since the recession started in December of 2007, the American economy has lost 8.4 million jobs. Thus, the question remains: even if up to 1 million jobs are created and/or saved by the 2010 Senate jobs bill, what about the remaining 13.9 million jobs that are not rescued? Furthermore, what will happen to the 1 million jobs once the tax breaks and other incentives to employers run out?