Stimulus Makes People Bad at Math

How many people make math errors on their individual income tax returns each year?

Depends on the year, according to an updated trove of tax statistics that the Internal Revenue Service released Thursday.

In most of the last decade, there were three million to five million math mistakes a year. But in years with federal fiscal stimulus efforts, math errors on tax returns soar.

The chart shows individual income tax return errors for the tax years shown on the horizontal axis (so, for example, the number shown for 2005 refers to individual income tax returns filed by April 15, 2006, for the 2005 tax year).

Helpfully, the I.R.S. breaks down the math mistakes according to which section of the tax return filers messed up. In 2008, 74.4 percent of the mistakes were related to the recovery rebate credit, which were special payments to taxpayers associated with the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. And in 2001, 57 percent of the math errors were related to the one-time Rate Reduction Credit of 2001, a stimulus measure intended to help subdue the 2001 recession.

These trends make sense. The tax code is already incredibly complicated; a one-time change adds even more confusion.

The government can keep track of waste in the American health care system by keeping better track on how doctors choose to treat their patients, an economist writes.

A look at job shifts in individual states seems to prove that it did, an economist writes.

About half of the world’s countries currently have some sort of quota for women in their national legislatures, but women are still a small minority in nearly every national parliament around the globe.

Across the industrialized world, the typical full-time male worker earns 17.6 percent more than his female counterpart.

Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we’re supposed to eat least of.

Will Atlanta remain a growing economic force, an economist asks, or will the housing downturn turn it into a place that might have been?

Older workers are less likely to be unemployed than younger workers. But when they do lose their jobs, they’re likely to be out of work much longer.

How you view today’s jobs report depends on snow.

Immigrants may or may not compete with Americans for jobs, but they do help keep the Social Security system solvent.

Increases in life expectancy might have bankrupted Social Security if it were not for women in the work force, an economist writes.

Catherine Rampell is the economics editor at nytimes.com.

David Leonhardt writes the Economic Scene column, which appears in The Times on Wednesdays.

Sewell Chan writes about economic issues from Washington D.C.

Marc Lacey is The Times's bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

Economists offer readers insights about the dismal science.

Economics doesn’t have to be complicated. It is the study of our lives "” our jobs, our homes, our families and the little decisions we face every day. Here at Economix, David Leonhardt, Catherine Rampell and other contributors will analyze the news and use economics as a framework for thinking about the world. We welcome feedback, at economix@nytimes.com.

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Faces, numbers and stories from behind the downturn.

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Apture allows readers to dig deeper into a subject without ever leaving the blog post. When you click on any link marked by the icons , , or , you will be able to view video, reference materials, images and other related media. Please e-mail your feedback and thoughts on this feature to apture@nyt.com.

An accounting of the government’s rescue package.

Three economists explain what worked and what didn't.

A map of unemployment rates across the United States, now through January.

Faces, numbers and stories from behind the downturn.

A series about the surge in consumer debt and the lenders who made it possible.

A series exploring the origins of the financial crisis, from Washington to Wall Street.

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