In its latest American Recovery and Reinvestment Act update, released July 14, the  White House estimates that the stimulus measure's spending and tax breaks have created or preserved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs as of June 30.

The new figures represent an increase over the 2.2 million to 2.8 million jobs that the White House estimates were added or saved by March 31, via the stimulus.

In releasing the report, Vice President Joe Biden said that the Obama administration's recovery efforts are working. But Biden also acknowledged that there is "a lot more work to be done."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that despite the report, "this is no time to celebrate." He added, "The fastest-growing parts of this Democrat economy aren't jobs--they're the crushing burden of the national debt and the size of the federal government."

Shortly before ARRA was enacted in February 2009, the Congressional Budget Office estimated its total price tag at $787 billion. Early this year, CBO increased its estimate for the legislation to $862 billion. One factor behind the higher number was the larger-than-anticipated demand for the Build America Bonds program, which was created under ARRA.

The new report, prepared by the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA),  says that stimulus outlays for infrastructure, "clean energy" and other "public investment" totaled $86.3 billion as of June 30. That represents a 46% gain over the $59.2 billion in outlays as of March 31.

In looking at those numbers, I would add a couple of caveats.  First,  only a portion of the public investment totals are for construction programs--I can't determine the exact construction share.

In addition, CEA divides public investment totals among several categories and puts ARRA transit and high-speed-rail funding in the "clean energy" segment,  not transportation infrastructure. ARRA appropriations were about $10 billion for transit and $8 billion for high-speed rail.

Having said that, here is the funding breakdown as of June 30  for the public investment categories that seem to me to be the most construction-related:

(in billions of $)
                                               Appropriated           Obligated         Outlays
Transportation infrastructure:      30.0                        27.7                10.9

Buildings                                      31.2                        23.6                8.3

Environmental cleanup/preservation   23.4                21.0                  7.4

Clean energy*                                       94.8                 51.3                19.9

*includes transit and  high-speed rail

And CEA's estimated jobs created/saved for those segments:

                                                        1Q/2010               2Q 2010

Transportation infrastructure:             87,200                  102,000

Buildings                                            60,600                   80,200

Environmental cleanup/preservation   56,900                  79,400

Clean energy*                                      141,400                 190,700

*Includes transit and high-speed rail