Friday, the Obama administration announced that the $787 billion stimulus package has, so far, created or retained nearly 640,000 jobs across the country, but what has it done to improve the economic situation locally?

The answer to that question, is not a whole lot on the job front.

So far, only about $150 billion of the nearly $790 billion in the President's stimulus package has been spent. The Vice President said 80,000 construction jobs and $325,000 education jobs have been created or saved through this funding.

A map from www.recovery.gov shows that Pennsylvania has been awarded more than 4.5 billion, of which the state has received nearly $430 million. Throughout the state, more than 7,000 jobs have been created or saved. But here at home, experts say the stimulus package really hasn't had much of an impact.

"There's been a lot of dollars that have flowed down to the community to the dislocated employees for benefits and for retraining, we have seen that and we know there's more to come, but on the job creation side of the equation, we just haven't seen that," said Jake Rouch, Erie Regional Chamber & Growth Partnership.

In and around the City of Erie, most of the jobs created were through grants to PennDOT. But the stimulus money also allowed the City of Erie, the Erie Housing Authority and even Gannon University to create and retain jobs.

"I think it's not disappointing, it's what those of us who looked at it expected, it wasn't gonna jump start the economy, it was meant to get some more money out in the economy to keep things rolling along," said Rouch.

The President says by the end of next year, the stimulus package should create an additional 3.5 million jobs around the country. Experts locally are optimistic that it will have an impact here.

Rouch says, "I really believe it stabilized us, and I think it will help as the private sector kicks in more next year and the year after that and that stimulus money will be there as an additional boost to help get the economy cooking agian."