Wash. Post uncritically reported misleading GOP talking point on job growth
SUMMARY: A Washington Post article by staff writer Dan Balz uncritically reported RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt's misleading claim in support of President Bush's economic record: that "5.4 million jobs have been created in the last three years alone," leaving the impression that job growth had also occurred earlier in Bush's presidency. In fact, Bush presided over a net loss of 2.6 million jobs, from the beginning of his presidency through July 2003.
In a July 25 article on the domestic agenda recently unveiled by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and the Democratic Leadership Council, Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz uncritically reported Republican National Committee (RNC) spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt's misleading claim in support of President Bush's economic record: that "5.4 million jobs have been created in the last three years alone." Balz then noted Schmitt's contention that "[e]ven a master politician can't manipulate those numbers." But in referring to "the last three years alone," Schmitt left the impression that job growth had also occurred earlier in Bush's presidency. In fact, Bush presided over a net loss of 2.6 million jobs, from the beginning of his presidency through July 2003.
Schmitt's argument echoes a "fact sheet" released by the White House on July 7 declaring that "the economy has created about 1.85 million jobs over the past 12 months -- and more than 5.4 million since August 2003." The White House figures appear to come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Current Employment Statistics survey's measurements of "Total Nonfarm Employment -- Seasonally Adjusted" nationwide. But the White House -- and Schmitt -- touted job growth over a selected timeframe, ignoring earlier job losses that occurred under Bush.
The same BLS survey shows that the economy lost jobs in 24 of the first 30 full months of Bush's presidency (February 2001 through July 2003), shedding a net total of approximately 2.6 million jobs during that period. These losses offset nearly half of the jobs created from August 2003 through June 2006, meaning a net total of 2.8 million jobs have thus far been created in the first 65 months of the Bush presidency. In contrast, the first 65 months of the Clinton presidency saw a net gain of 16 million jobs, according to the same BLS survey, with a net gain of 22.7 million jobs by the end of Clinton's second term in January 2001.
From Balz's July 25 Washington Post article:
"A policy of fiscal discipline and budget surpluses was abandoned for one that racked up debt and claimed that deficits don't matter," Clinton said. "And a policy that focused on helping the middle class get bigger and healthier and stronger was replaced by one that helped the strong get stronger and the rich get richer."
Reworking a line from her husband's 1992 campaign, she said the rallying cry for Democrats this fall should be: "It's the American Dream, stupid."
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt contested Clinton's appraisal of the GOP's economic record. "Political theatrics aside, the reality is 5.4 million jobs have been created in the last three years alone," she said in an e-mail message. "Even a master politician can't manipulate those numbers."
Like "Slick Willie", is it implying some trickery or dishonesty?
And what are the "political theatrics?" the RNC spokeswoman is talking about?
Stupid Reality- always getting in the way of the "Good News".
Anybody have info on how many jobs in the last 3 years are military or related (Contractors, etc.)?
HB Lefty, you see, war is good for the economy. That must be why the neocons want to keep the USA in a perpetual state of war. It's actually patriotic... ;>)
Perhaps the 5.4 million new jobs refers to the number of new jobs available for illegal aliens. Seems low to me... ;>)
Also according to BLS it takes on average of approx. 210,000- 220,000 new jobs per month to break even. Dividing 36 months into 5,400,000, you come up with 160,000 jobs per month created. Please explain how 160,000 new jobs created each month, rises to the minimun required to break even. In closing the BLS only counts you for unemployed for the first 6 weeks collecting benefits,after 6 weeks you don't count in the big picture. So Tracey Schmitts "Pie in the Sky" outlook has been "Manipulated" or maybe you could call it "Fuzzy Math"!
Apparently an 8-year president needs 20 million to break even. Kinda sobers up Clinton's 22 million, I'd say.
Well, it depends on the birth rate ~18 years ago, adjusted for current deaths and retirements. I can't quickly find older statistics, but the current population growth rate is 0.9%. That's 2.68 million births, or about 220,000 per month.
The Bush admin has a nasty habit of ignoring annoying little facts like this. I believe one of them recently touted the rise in average wage, without noting that it actually *fell* when adjusted for inflation. Oops.
That's a pathetic 158,000 jobs per month. I guess these figures are meant to sound like a lot to the "average person or something"... otherwise I'm not sure why they're touting them.
But of course, they need to find the bright spots wherever they can, no matter how small they are. It reminds me of the last Republican convention right before the election, when the main (only, almost) talking point brought up by everyone about the economy was "home ownership is up". No matter that the reasons for that were because of low interest rates because of a slowed down economy, or that the number of foreclosures in poorer communities also reached a record high... but it was basically the only number they could tout at all.
Much of this economic "info" is bogus. Note--as has been noted over the years (and like I argued at the World Bank a week ago) that these figures are spread out. In other words, they don't apply to me.
Putting it simply, you are making a half a mil and I'm unemployed, we're making an average income of a quarter mil. And that's meaningless (if not demeaning!)
Look at the figures to which these whores refer. They're all similar--bogus. And, as usual, the media whores don't challenge them. Nope. They're too busy trying to sell adveritising to those who're unemployed and can't afford the products they've purchased because of the advertising.
It's discouraging.
Take the lauded 5.4 less the net loss of 2.6 and you have 2.8 million net jobs created since the Bush appointment began. That a paltry 42,424 jobs created per month since Jan. 2001. Factor in that many of those who lost jobs had to take lower paying jobs requiring longer hours with little or cut-rate benefits packages and what you have is the Conservative Dream for Middle America: working harder for less. Meanwhile, CEO benefits and salaries have skyrocketed, and unions have slowly dwindled to near-extinction. Ah, the revival of an old American tradition: shameless exploitation of the working classes. Maybe if we're lucky, our corporate masters will allow us the privilege of working 70 hours per week, and so our families don’t miss us, our children can work for free. It’ll be just like the good ol' days of 1900, which is about how much they like to pay us per annum, or perhaps the year 1850 is more in line with the Republican way of thinking, and this time skin color won’t factor into the deal; it’s whips and chains and the yoke for everyone but our “betters”.
If you ask me whether or not I think CEO's make too much in general, well I absolutely do. But what I see about the "middle class" in the year 2006 is that it doesn't resemble the one I grew up in the 1970's. I lived in a middle class neighborhood where almost every family had a stay-at-home mom, most of the houses were three bedroom ramblers with families having 1 or 2 cars, 1 tv maybe 2 and the fathers worked 40-50 hour weeks and coached baseball after work. Then the families all had sit-down meals for supper.
In 2006, the "middle class" is way wealthier in my view than we were 30 years ago. Both parents work, everyone has two and three vehicles, three tvs, cell phones, DVD's, all these things have become necessities that used to be luxuries. Our standards have just increased if you ask me. I'm not saying that's bad but it's a different era.
You say people struggle to get by, but I contend it is because they want much more than previous generations had at the same level of income.
That is a good point. Just think of all the "necessities" many of us in the middle-class pay for now: cable tv, cell phones, satellite radio, internet, on-star... and i'm sure other things. There is tremendous pressure to consume, which has pretty much always been the case, but it's been really exaggerated lately, and companies have found ways to really nickel-and-dime people.
I think this is really human nature though. The reasons the middle class back then didn't have more was because in some cases it simply wasn't invented, and in other cases they were much more expensive (adjusting for inflation) than they are now. I remember a TV my dad bought in 1980... it cost around $1000! I don't know what that is in today's dollars, but that was a helluva lot of money back then, and isn't exactly peanuts now.
So I think we in the middle class will spend as much as we possibly can, and always complain that we're being treated unfairly. :)
This is the sort of soft peddling that led to the disastrously out of proportion with reality bankruptcy bill. Y'know, the one WRITTEN by the CREDIT CARD companies. For the REAL scoop on where Middle Americas money goes, read this article written by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi:
[link to bostonreview.net]
Here is where Middle America is spending the majority of their income:
1. Homes 2. Second vehicle (require since both Mom and Dad work) 3. HEALTH INSURANCE. 4. DAY CARE. 5. Taxes (38% more taxes paid than a generation ago, in the 1970s)
I full capped those last two for one reason: NO ONE should have to pay for EITHER. They should come with being a citizen of the USA, with being a living human being.
And I'm Canadian. Our government gave us $100 a month for daycare, and the daycares went and raised their prices. Then to top it off, the government is taking back other subsidies that relate to children. End result: parents get about the same as before, childcare costs go up. My government is stupid.
School vouchers would present the same problem. If the government gives families $4000 for their kids to attend private schools, the really good private schools especially would raise their rates. It is a supply and demand problem.
Obviously, health insurance is a big burden for everyone. I'd imagine that the rising costs of health insurance is also a hindrance for businesses, especially smaller ones. But I guess the insurance companies have better lobbyists.
I too see no reason why this should be seen as a privilige, and why it's mainly tied to employment. It really makes no sense, economically or socially.
but considering the cost of housing these days, I'll be lucky if I can get a 2 bedroom out in the boonies with a 2 hour drive to work every day when it would be much better to live in town (mass transit) I make a decent wage, but I can't afford housing that's appropriate for my family, how is that an improvement?
That was Bruce1Ace,explaining in Republicanese how much better off Americans are because Mom and Dad both get to go to work outside the house now.
Those countries you see on TV with mom & dad selling dope and all three daughters turning tricks must really be booming.
I'm sure they don't have to, they just want them fancy dvd's & shoes.
I did a quick check and found:
In the past 3 years 75% of all jobs were in sectors that pay on average, more than the average of all jobs.
Compensation, wages and benefits has increased 20% since 2001.
per capita after tax disposable income has increased 7.7% since Bush took office.
This was just after a quick look, there are other statistics out there that says income is up.
When I see posts like yours, I'd like to see the proof that back up your statements. Otherwise they look to the rest of us as typical liberal left "we hate Bush" talking points.
Like the saying goes, if you can't fool 'em with facts, baffle 'em with bull$#*t. In this case, you were fooled by facts. You wrote:
per capita after tax disposable income has increased 7.7% since Bush took office.
That amounts to an average annual increase of less than 1.5%. Over the same period, inflation averaged around 2.9% annually. In other words, the 1.5% annual increase in disposable income wasn't enough to keep up with inflation. So, if you're one of the lucky ones who received the average increase, your income buys less than it did when Bush took office.
The 7.7% number is already inflation adjusted. The source you plagiarized is the executive summary of the Republican Policy Committee April 28, 2006 memo. [link to rpc.senate.gov] However, you omitted the phrase between the commas, "adjusted for inflation."
Having blown my time with that pointless exercise, I'll have to address the other issues with those statistics, e.g., mean vs median, at a later time. Or perhaps someone else is willing...or already has...?
Among the working classes, meaning people who don't make mega bucks, REAL wages went down for the first time since the Great Depression, 1932 or 1933.
Feel the prosperity...
What was the pay rate of those jobs Bush "created"?
You know, were they service jobs that payed $8/hour with no benefits?
Others have noted how bad the numbers are when expressed per month and compared with population growth. There is another flaw in Bush's numbers.
Note that they quote non-farm statistics. One of the major areas of job growth has been in government jobs. If you look at private jobs, seasonally adjusted, since 1/2001, the increase is only 1.6 million, or 25,000 per month.
On top of that, average weekly hours of production workers are down about 1% in this time. The few jobs created can be accounted for by splitting the same amount of work between more part-time workers.
After my earlier debacle, I decided to go back and look at the BEA data referenced by the Senate Republican Policy Committee in their April 28 2006 memo. [link to rpc.senate.gov] Specifically, I was interested in growth in other areas not mentioned in the RPC memo. So, I dumped the BEA data (BEA table 2.1, quarterly figures for 2000-2006) to a spreadsheet and added formulas to calculate growth in all of the categories for the period of Bush's presidency.
So, what to my wondering eyes should appear...no, not eight tiny reindeer, but numbers that simply didn't match the RPC numbers. For example, the RPC memo states...
Per capita after-tax disposable income, adjusted for inflation, has increased 7.7 percent since President Bush took office...
The BEA data indicates that per capita inflation-adjusted (what the BEA calls chained 2000 dollars) disposable income at the end of the 1st quarter of 2006 was $27,508. At the end of the 4th quarter of 2000, the figure was $25,599. That's a 7.46% increase.
So, how did the RPC get 7.7%? Not easily. Dividing $27,508 by 1.077 yields a number that didn't match anything in the series. I then tried looking at the annual averages; still nothing. So, on a guess I took the 4th quarter 2005 figure ($27,458), divided it by 1.077 and got 25,494.89.
Eureka! Well, almost. Looking at the quarterly data, I noted that the 2nd quarter 2002 figure was $25,449. (Could the RPC have transposed the number?) Why the 2nd quarter number? Because that was the low point for per capita income so far under Bush. (Note that the number went up from 4Q00 to 1Q01, then dropped in 2Q01.)
The RPC memo continues...
...as compared to a 7.4-percent growth rate during the comparable period of the Clinton Adminstration
How did the RPC get that number? Again they used the figure at the end of the 5th year in office, i.e., 4th quarter 1997. However, for Clinton they compared that number to the 4th quarter 1992 number to get the 7.4% increase.
So, how does Clinton and Bush compare on an apples to apples basis? Comparing the figure of the 4th quarter prior to taking office to the figure for the 1st quarter of their 6th year (i.e., 1Q98 and 1Q06), per capita inflation-adjusted disposable income grew 9.38% under Clinton, but only 7.46% under Bush.