Right-wing gets clever with charts to falsely cast Dems as job killers
July 12, 2010 11:58 am ET by Eric Schroeck
Right-wing blogs have recently been pushing a chart based on cherry-picked data that conveniently shows a correlation between rising unemployment and the Democratic takeover of Congress after the 2006 elections. The right-wing media's latest fun with charts serves two purposes here -- to trash Democrats as job killers and blame them for the recession that sparked the rise in unemployment. Take a look:
Sure looks bad for Democrats, right? But since this is a chart hyped by
right-wing media, you can safely bet it's based on misleading,
cherry-picked
data aimed squarely at making Democrats look bad. And sure enough, it
is.
First, contrary to the chart's suggestion that the Democratic takeover of Congress is somehow to blame for the recession -- which led to the spike in unemployment -- PolitiFact has rated that claim "Pants on Fire" false, noting, "We believe it is the height of partisan wishful thinking to imply that one party's accession to power in Congress is to blame for a major recession." PolitiFact also reported that "[m]ost of the economists we spoke to agreed that the recession was caused most directly by long-term trends, especially a bust in housing prices and high energy prices, rather than by political factors."
Also, we can play the chart game, too. If you look at other available jobs data, you can draw a completely different conclusion: that job growth has indeed been stronger under Democratic leadership than Republican leadership. PolitiFact recently examined job creation under Democratic presidents versus Republican presidents since World War II and concluded: "Democratic presidents have been more successful at creating jobs." Here's PolitiFact's rundown of "the average annual percentage increases in jobs for each postwar president":
Harry S. Truman (Democrat): increase of 2.95 percent a year
Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican): increase of 0.50 percent a year
John F. Kennedy (Democrat): increase of 2.03 percent a year
Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat): increase of 3.88 percent a year
Richard M. Nixon (Republican): increase of 2.16 percent a year
Gerald R. Ford (Republican): increase of 0.86 percent a year
Jimmy Carter (Democrat): increase of 3.45 percent a year
Ronald Reagan (Republican): increase of 2.46 percent a year
George H.W. Bush (Republican): increase of 0.40 percent a year
Bill Clinton (Democrat): increase of 2.86 percent a year
George W. Bush (Republican): increase of 0.01 percent a year
Barack Obama (Democrat): decrease of 3.0 percent a year
PolitiFact further noted:
If you exclude Obama, Democrats averaged 3.03 percent annual job growth, compared to 1.07 percent for Republicans -- a nearly 3-to-1 advantage.
If you include Obama, the Democrats still held a significant edge. With Obama included, the Democrats averaged 2.03 annual job growth, compared to the same 1.07 for Republicans -- about twice as high as the GOP.
Certainly paints a different picture than the misleading right-wing chart, doesn't it?
So this chart falls short of reality on two fronts. But all of this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, though. As Media Matters has previously shown, this isn't the first time right-wing media have gotten clever with charts to falsely attack Democrats over employment figures.
There was a time when an average person could go to a factory and make a decent living, even if the work wasn't so pleasant. Those days are gone, and I think both political parties can share the blame.
Seems to me that an initiative to build a renewable energy infrastructure could help create some new manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Unfortunately, such a plan appears all but impossible in the current political climate. Too bad.
The question then becomes, which activity by congress in 2007 that destroyed the country did the republicans fail to filibuster?
I have a distant recollection of wall street and deregulation being somehow involved. Sounds political.
Way to stay "independent", Politifact. It's nobody's fault and we can all join hands.
Just last week they twisted what Ariana Huffington (not my favorite person, but she made few good points) said about a Politifact article to attack her and defend themselves.
She truthfully attacked contractors in Iraq who have defrauded the US government and its taxpayers, and didn't omit any relevant data in making that claim.
Politifact rated her claim as half-true, because she supposedly left off some relevant info. But she didn't. Yes, there's LOTS that can be said about the contractors we use in Iraq, and they are not 100% bad, but she didn't SAY that they were 100% bad. She made a 100% true statement that they rated as half-true because they are too nice to the right side of the aisle.
-In 2009 the wealth of the millionaires in America and Canada grew by 15%. In the midst of the worst recession and depression in 70 years.
-About 4.7 million people in the U.S. are millionaires. More than any other nation on the planet.
-Of course, about 15 million in America are unemployed and looking for work, with about 8 million more who simply have a part time job and can't make ends meet.
-About 39 million people in the States are chronically poor, which means that they get to live like those people you see on T.V. in third world countries who get a pittance to eat.
Some nice facts from government offices there to demonstrate just how abysmal things actually are right now for tens of millions of people in the United States at the moment. To say nothing of all those who are being raped daily by health insurance companies, mortgage companies, banks, etc. And still people continue to lie and deceive about the economy, jobs, etc. Play political games about their side being 'right'.
The unemployment figures are carefully manufactured to avoid including certain groups of people. If you take all those who could have a job but don't (because, say, they've simply stopped looking out of frustration?), the actual (or real) unemployment in America is much closer to 20% than it is to 10%. Chilling. Especially so because there are people in America that will claim that such factual reality isn't reality at all, and that if only their side would be elected (or given more time) then everything would be all right. They simply ignore or downplay or blame the opposing side for all the woes, or they try to ludicrous line of 'but if the other side was doing it, then it would be soooo much worse.' Like claiming that you should be happy with a knife wound because hey, it could have been a gun shot instead.
It's absurd. I seriously wonder how things have gotten this horribly wrong, where people are content to lie (and believe such deceits) rather than make life better for everybody and all that they can.
Just imagine how hard it is for people with less education and no experience.
My own daughter, fresh out of high school, is looking right now. She's hit every retail store and fast food joint in the area. No luck. When I was her age, fast food jobs were easy to get. The turnover was so fast, anyone with a pulse could get a job. I managed a Burger King for a while in the late 70s. We were always short-handed.
Oh, but that's right, deficits didn't matter under January 2009 when a Dem took over.