once stimulus money's left the hands of the fed gov a lot of GOP governors used those monies to pay down state budget deficits vs using those money's for job creation, i.e. capital projects. that means those monies were removed from circulation. this coincides with the GOP blocking the Build America Bonds (BAB) program as well which would have increased monies for capital projects for local governments. the BAB program would have created some jobs for capital projects since the national savings rate has been so low for so many decades there were no monies saved.

basically the GOP is intentionally tanking the economy and recovery to keep unemployment as high as possible going into the 2012 election.

for the most part the unemployment rate is the same when Obama took office to now right around 9% +/-. the last recession of 2001 was also followed by a jobless recovery.