By carefully manipulating statistics, Mitt Romney and his campaign are pushing a wildly misleading claim this week about job creation in the Obama era. But there's a larger analytical point that shouldn't get lost in the shuffle: who deserves the blame for the job losses in early 2009?
Greg Sargent noted yesterday that Romney, as part of his new con, "relies on a net overall job loss calculation that uses January 2009 as a starting point." Since President Obama didn't take office until Jan. 20, 2009, and hadn't implemented any economic policies in his first 11 days, blaming Obama for the month's job losses seems ridiculous by any fair standard.
Greg added, "But here's the thing about this. Romney's use of the basic fallacy on display here goes well beyond this one claim about women. It's central to virtually his entire case against Obama's economic record."
Quite right -- when we start the clock makes all the difference. Romney argued two weeks ago, for example, "Since Barack Obama became president, over 800,000 Americans have lost their jobs." The presumptive Republican nominee called it a "basic fact" -- take all the jobs lost, measure against all the jobs gained, and Obama is still hundreds of thousands of jobs in the hole.
Or is he? Consider this new chart I put together.
This may seem a little complicated, and it's no doubt a lost cause in an age of six-second soundbites, but bear with me.
Indeed, consider a thought experiment. Imagine you could go back to March 1, 2009, when the global economy was on the brink of collapse. The White House's Recovery Act had just been signed into law, but the investments had barely even begun, and Obama, still unpacking, did not yet have his full economic team in place.
Then imagine a Republican arguing, just six weeks into Obama's term, "Mr. President, the economy has lost 726,000 jobs on your watch, and we're blaming you for the losses."
Would any serious person find this fair or reasonable? Of course not. And yet, it's the basis for the Romney campaign's entire economic critique of the Obama administration.
The question is, when do we start counting? As of yesterday, the Romney campaign said we should start on Jan. 1, 2009, three weeks before Obama took office. And looking at the chart, we see that the net shift in jobs, starting on that date through today, is -1.6 million jobs (-1 million looking only at the private sector).
But if we start the clock on March 1, 2009, after Obama's first full month in office, the net change for his presidency is -102,000 (or +484,000 looking only at the private sector).
If we say Obama walked into a nightmare and the first six months of 2009 shouldn't count against him, the economy, combining all the jobs lost and all the jobs gained, had added 2.24 million overall (2.8 million looking only at the private sector).
When we start counting makes all the difference. To make Obama look like a "failure," Republicans want the earliest possible point to start the clock.
Of course, given the severity of the global crash Obama inherited, most reasonable people can agree blaming him for the early job losses is unfair, if not ludicrous. But given that this is central to Romney's critique of the Obama presidency, it's important to keep the figures in mind -- the only way Romney's criticisms make any sense at all is if you hold Obama responsible for the conditions he walked into immediately after (or shortly before) his inauguration.
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As my friends from the funding wing of the republican party would tell me...
What the hell does fair or reasonable have to do with it? It is all about getting the black democrat usurper out of the 'White' House and returning rule of the country back to reliable white republican hands.
Nicely said SadOldVeteran...that's the truth. It's got nothing to do with Obama's performance...and everything to do with the color of his skin!
They'd also argue that the losses before Obama took office were because of the country anticipating his taking office......
DawnOhioCity - I am starting to believe this is much more true than I previously thought... And when you consider the VERY rich, old, white people who are pulling the strings in the background it starts to make more sense too.
<sarcasm> Well, if someone can be considered pregnant before intercourse, then things can be Obama's fault before he becomes president, dagnabbit. And you're a communist if you think otherwise. You democRAT people don't have a card yet, but you will. Someday. Maybe. </sarcasm>
x
Umm Stl? There actually is a bill that was just passed in Arizona that now declares personhood starting at the moment a woman stops her period which would mean that personhood can be declared up to 2 weeks before conception actually takes place.
YOU FORGOT TO ADD... "create as much chaos as is possible to maintain confusion & deception".
Do republicans think people are ignorant of actual facts? Do they think democrats will NOT challenge their claims? When it comes to taxes and women's issues they are WAY OUT there.
But the regular Joe doesn't pay attention, and doesn't care.
Just a few days ago, a retired teacher told me the "government was robbing from the Social Security Trust Fund." It was too hard to explain to her the real deal -- her eyes began to glaze over.
Do repukes think people are ignorant of actual facts? Absolutely!
Do they think democrats will NOT challenge their claims? History would indicate that the dumbcrap leaders will not substantatively do so!
Will the Corporately Owned Media continue their assigned tasks of being echo chambers and message amplifiers for the republicans? Absolutely!
@pol-4134612 - I suppose we can take comfort that the teacher with little patience for details and facts is now retired.
Yes, republicans do think people are ignorant of the facts. They also know that the first statement has much more effect than the rebuttal. In fact, the rebuttal sometimes just reinforces the initial (false) claim. Makes sense to be the first with a claim.
Steve you are assuming:
1) The GOP and their supporters actually care about the TRUTH.
2) That the GOP and their supporters actually operate on basic common sense.
3) That the corporate owned media will actually challenge Mittens on his lies.
4) That the GOP sheeple even remember what they did last week.
5) That fair, analytical, obvious, reasonable - actually have anything to do with the Muslim-Kenyan-America hating-terrorist loving-Marxist-Socialist African-American in the "WHITE House" and how terribly upsetting it is for the sheeple to have him in there!
It is truly pathetic that you are spot on.
Rachel you are the best! I just discovered your show a couple weeks ago. I know, where have I been? Anyway, please check out my blog at lifechangecounseling.wordpress.com since I checked out yours. Thank you for bringing honesty back to the political world. Thanks for bring back the truth not some spin.
I have to ask though on an unrelated topic, how is possible that West gets away with his communist banter? Isn't it at the very least, slanderous?
Romney's claiming that merely electing Obama should've been enough to turn the economy around and stop a global financial crisis. How is that unreasonable?
If you can start the clock for a pregnancy two weeks before conception, I don't see why you can't start the clock for Obama's job losses three weeks before he was inaugurated.
Exactly my thought...
Don't forget, these people also call the war in Iraq and Afghanistan Obama's war. So really, this logic just follow the chain.
I'm trying to get a grip on Republican Responsibility theory. IIRC, according to the GOP, even though 9/11 happened about 230 days after GW Bush was sworn in it was still more Clinton's responsibility than Bush's. I think their rule is that time periods are always to be shifted so that the GOP gets to count good things and bad things go on the Dem. ledger. So the proper GOP interpretation of the chart above is that job losses from 1/1/09 - 3/1//09 are Obama's fault but job gains through 7/1/09 are because of residual strength Bush left in the economy.
it's called "flipping the script" a gop playbook tactic.....reverse your weakest point onto your opponent. so typical of the romney camp.
It's called projection by psychologists. The speaker "projects" on to the person that he is talking about, or to, the attributes that he himself has. For example, a person calls another person a liar when the speaker himself is the actual liar. It seems that Romney will be using this tactic a lot in the coming election. I wish that Rachel would use projection instead of "flipping the script". But both are accurate. Rep. West seems to be using the same tactic, but he should be using the term facist instead of communist.
Actually, if my memory serves me right, Karl Rove was the first to cause my carotid to pop with this tactic. I believe he wrote the book on a lot of the deceitful stuff the current crop of 'wingers are into, and he got some of his ideas from the "dirty tricks" of the Nixon crowd. To me, what makes these guys so despicable is that it never seems to occur to them to try speaking straight to the American public in the first place. I guess they figure that since they have a shortage of facts and common sense in their arsenal, they might as well save everybody time and go straight to the deceit, truth twisting, misrepresenting, demeaning personal attacks, and outright lies.
I love how Mitt-o-nomics works - move the starting point 3 weeks before they start - and then blame them for that time - lol
The more I look at it, the more I detect the dumbing of the world, as it being manifested in every aspect of our lives. So many voices are allowed to express their opinion in various forums, some more wide spread and some less, but somehow are given the same level of importance. A lone blogger somewhere in Montana has the potential to attract the same attention and importance as in the past was the privilege of the likes of Walter Cronkite. Hundreds of TV, radio, internet channels demand man power to fill out the cycle, and by definition one cannot find enough “brain power” for all of them. Soon enough commentators who don’t really know the map of the world, relating to Africa as a country, become the pillars of our information channels, demonizing the real intellect and intellectuals as the evils of the world. One big circus of a reality show within a reality show. I am a huge believer in the human spirit. History teaches us that arts, intelligence, the power of advanced thinking has always been the driving forces behind the world’s progress. Like water that find it’s way through cracks, and fill up any available given space it can reach, human spirit will find the way to diminish the power of those who make every effort to suppress it’s natural tendency. It is just a matter of time. The human brain, and the people’s spirits can defy any television show, any reality-like presentation, and definitely any evil, backward thinking.
The GOP has become a band of pathological liars. They lie so often and so profusely, they don't even realize it any more. I remember seeing them holding press conferences a few years ago, whining that Nancy Pelosi was not going to let them go home for Christmas. They (Boehner) were hard at work, doing whatever dirty trick they could, to kill an energy bill (including making the clerk take 8 hours reading the bill out loud, while they left the room!-this is FACT! I watched it on CSPAN). When she told them Merry Christmas, go home and enjoy your families, they held another press conference and said they were 'shocked', then whined that they had things to say and she turned the microphones and lights off. They did this in front of about 60 microphones, not including the ones they got on Fox!
Truth, to them, is whatever is politically expedient, like their lying about the Keystone Pipeline. It was a Republican Governor who called for stopping the pipeline from going through delicate aquifers. They didn't accept a permit, and the company said they could re-route. But it sounds better to say Obama shut off our oil. They even lie about it being oil and not tar sand sludge that will have to be refined in our refineries and pollute our air and water.
It is beyond sad that in an age of access to information, telling lies is actually EASIER! There is such a flood of info, only some of us with a shred of integrity have time to sort through the dross.
Of course the hidden take away is that if you compare private sector job growth with overall job growth, a lot of public sector (good paying, union member) jobs were lost. The GOP would say these aren't real jobs, but to the people who had them, they sure seemed real.
Republican thinking has a women pregnant two weeks before the conception of the child, so maybe the place to start counting up job losses is six months before Obama took office.
A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for
insight and understanding.
Marshall McLuhan
Ok everyone wake up. Before President Obama was inaugurated, Fox news was already blaming him for the economy. In the world of right wing news facts are not important, and for some people if Fox says it, its fact. Don't you just love how that works. The bitter discourse in America is caused by the fiction channel.
Is there a source for the numbers behind the chart? The Bureau of Labor Statistics is almost opposite.. What am I missing?
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Because you're looking at employment as per population as opposed to net employment gain.
The two graphs aren't depicting the same data and what is more the bls graph is taking into account years worth of information as opposed to months. This is a situation in which the framing of the graph and the parameters used can skew the interpretation that you make.
The highest point on the chart ranges in the 66's while the lowest point ranges in the 63's. This is not to say that the BLS is skewing the information, but rather that in order for it to be all inclusive over a 16 year period the BLS has to graph the chart differently. If you actually were to zoom in on the participation rate for the time PBO has been in office you'd see the number going up as compared to when he started.
Actually apologies, I was not looking at this graph correctly. The labor force participation rate is the ratio of the current labor force versus that of the general population of the same group. What this chart shows is that the labor force has gone down since 2001. This does not necessarily access how many people are working, but rather accesses how many people are available to work. I am still correct that the percentages are not as wildly different as the graph makes it appear, although again I don't think the BLS is skewing the graph in an undermining way. The highest is an almost 67% rate whereas the lowest is about a 63% rate. This simply means that the available working population has declined by roughly 4% since 2011. I am incorrect in stating that it has gone up under PBO- it has not.
Remember that labor participation does not include students, retired persons, stay at home parents, people in prisons or other institutions, people employed in any type of profession where the income goes unreported for various reasons, or discouraged workers (people who could be working, but for whatever reason are no longer seeking work and have fallen off the workforce charts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_force
Basically you're looking at the wrong graph Bob ;-)
don't worry, I'm sure liar mitty will also find a way to blame former President Clinton for the mess republicans created.
Republicans try to take real data and turn it into something frightful by playing with the parameters.
No surprise there - I think the technical term for it is 'spin'.
But there are enough data sources out there to know that the Republicans are telling fibs.
I am no political brain, but it seems to me that all the Dems have to do is to compile videos of Romney's flip floping and other stupidities during this campaign and show everything he has said about his views on women, big business...oil, etc. He has worked against himself. He has no idea even what his own party stands for, doesn't know what is really going on in any phase of government or with WE the People and has absolutely no ideas of his own. I can't wait to see him debating Obama...that should be a REAL show!
The republicans are only interested in winning. Fairness, honesty and compassion don't enter into it. Win by any cost - lie about the facts, place the blame for everything they don't like (even if they originally came up with the idea) on the dems, prevent people from voting, a little redistricting, do whatever it take so get around democracy (MI), pack the SC (they got a really BIG win on that one), let the NRA wright the bills and the most disgusting thing they do is all the subtle remarks about the POTUS that are racist but said in a way that they can deny it was a racist remark. It's remarkable just how much they hate having an African American President.
Women, Hispanics, seniors, middle income voters who want the same tax breaks that rich people get, and more and more independents, are just a few of the groups that stand in the way of a Romney victory. And whose fault is that?
Yes, i say we start the clock on the day he was elected. it's only fair. he's got a lot of explaining to do...
Eric, is this an example of Republican humor (almost an oxymoron), or are you just being sarcastic?
Better yet, push it back to the day that Obama announced he was running. Given the chance the Republiscum would claim that the mere thought of an African American being nominated was enough to tank the economy.
If the money spent on the embassy in Iraq were available in the United States, who knows how many problems could be solved! Who gets those buildings now? Some mercenaries sent there by the neo-cons? And to think, their leaders are home now, living on life time benefits.
It's all very discouraging.
Does Rachel read the comments to her posts on her blog?
There is no condition under which the January 2009 number is the point at which to start.
Employment numbers are taken on the 12th of the month. Barack Obama was elected before November 12, 2008, so you could argue an "Obama effect" from then. (But then you also have to "admit" that the 2001 recession was GWB's responsibility, since it started in March of 2009.)
Or you could argue--more difficult--that the right date to start is December 12, 2008, when it is clear that there will be no contesting the Electoral College (deadline for challenges was 9 Dec), and that Obama's election will be finalized. (Again, you have the GWB-2001 recession problem. Also, the "no one gives a flying **** about the Electoral College finalization except when the Supreme Court interferes" issue.)
Or you can work from the first month of data when Obama is in office--but that's February of 2009. (Still has the GWB-2001 problem.)
Or you can argue that there is no influence until his policies are presented, so that the measure should come in March of 2009 or following. This avoids the GWB/2001 inconsistency problem, but also presents you with the issues noted by Steve B.--specifically, that the data doesn't support you argument.
The only month that cannot be rationalized as a "start date"--no new information relating to whether or not Barack Obama is president--is, in fact, January (12,) 2009. Only someone who is data-illiterate would try to start from then.