There were always going to be questions about the effectiveness of the $787 billion federal stimulus bill. When it was passed, early this year, there were complaints that it was rushed through Congress and included lots of spending that did not match the rhetoric from President Barack Obama about "shovel ready" jobs and infrastructure investments.

Despite the expected partisan bickering, there was general support for federal stimulus spending to help the economy. In many cases, the stimulus money has plugged budget gaps for states, but it's less clear what it has done to create jobs.

Early in the discussion of need for more federal stimulus spending, Obama expanded the objective of the new federal spending from just creating jobs to creating and saving jobs. On the surface, it sounded like a reasonable shift, because saving a job is nearly as important as creating a new one — both lower the unemployment statistic.

But the shift to include saving jobs also gave supporters of the stimulus bill a huge cushion — or shield from criticism — when boasting of the program's effectiveness.

It is relatively easy to document new jobs, but documenting saved jobs is much more difficult — and subject to fudging or exaggeration for political purposes. It is almost impossible to accurately count saved jobs. And, therefore, it's very difficult to disprove inflated claims over the effectiveness of stimulus spending.

Last week, the Associated Press began to look at the numbers and the initial finding is that, not surprisingly, the job numbers touted by the Obama administration appear to be inflated.

It's easy to imagine the message coming from Washington, D.C., to all recipients of stimulus money — "We really want to be able to boast of lots of new jobs and saved jobs to silence critics of our big stimulus bill."

Whether is was an overt attempt to inflate numbers or just careless reporting, some of the early numbers are suspect.

A preliminary study by the AP looked at a small component of the stimulus spending that the White House had claimed led to the creation or saving of 30,000 jobs. The AP's examination suggested that figure is at least 5,000 overstated.

The AP found one claim of 4,231 jobs being created when only 1,000 were produced. In another case, the AP found that a community college in Georgia credited stimulus money with creating 280 jobs when no jobs were created by stimulus funds. In another case, the AP found that a Florida child care center had claimed stimulus funds allowed it to save 129 jobs, when the reality was that the center used stimulus funds to give its 129 employees a raise.

It will be important for the public to follow unbiased analyses of jobs created and saved by stimulus money. It's an inexact science, especially determining jobs saved. But the natural inclination of politicians to fudge figures and stretch the truth for political benefit is obvious and well documented.

While there is no evidence that the White House intentionally is inflating job figures, it certainly is quick to jump on preliminary reports that suggest the stimulus money is helping boost employment. There is no incentive in the White House or with any supporters of the stimulus bill to dig behind positive job figures to make sure they are accurate.

With the latest reports, released this week, the Obama administration is claiming 650,000 jobs have been saved or created by federal stimulus spending. It's been reported that about half of the 650,000 "saved" jobs in this report were teaching positions that states claimed might have been lost without federal stimulus money being used to fill state budget gaps. But is it really possible that more than 200,000 teachers would have lost their jobs without federal funds? Or would local school districts just have decided to raise property taxes?

The public should remain skeptical of all job claims, unless they are verified by an independent, nonpartisan analysis.

Stimulus spending has likely had some positive impact on the economy. But measuring jobs, especially jobs saved, is difficult and too easily subject to politics.