How Stimulating

Said a team from the N.B.E.R.,
On how rousing our stimuli are:
"You should give to the poor
If you want to insure
That your stimulus dollars go far."

The National Bureau of Economic Research looked into the effectiveness of federal stimulus spending.  This is an inherently ambiguous line of inquiry, given that one asks how the results have differed from a hypothetical case in which the government did nothing.  According to Real Time Economics, the NBER compared states that did or did not request stimulus dollars and determined that, while aid to states to retain public employees made no improvement on overall employment, aid to low-income families had a significantly stimulative effect.