... According to Wingnuttia's Math
Per the discussion of the right-wing's new efforts to slander Franklin Roosevelt, note that though the Bureau of Labor Statistics today reports that the unemployment rate in President Bush's last month is 7.2 percent, if you use the same kind of absurd math conservatives use to berate the New Deal, then the unemployment today is actually around 22 percent.
As University of California historian Eric Rauchway has noted, Wingnuttia's leading FDR slanderers like Amity Shlaes and Thomas Sowell base their claims that unemployment during the New Deal didn't go below 20 percent by counting government workers as unemployed. And those claims are being echoed by right-wing rags like the National Review and fringe think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. I want to repeat that: conservatives base their claims that unemployment didn't drop below 20 percent during the pre-WWII New Deal not on the official government data showing otherwise, but by counting government workers in programs like the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps as unemployed.
So, in the interest of comparing apples to apples, it's important to remember that using the same ridiculous method of counting, the unemployment rate today is 22 percent. Officially, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the total workforce is 155.4 million workers, and says 11.1 million workers in that workforce are unemployed - a 7.2 percent unemployment rate. But when you add the 22.5 million workers who BLS says work for the government to the 11.1 million officially unemployed workers ...
... more from David Sirota after the click.
2 comments:
Uh, your logic is more than a little flawed. In the first case, FDR's detractors are claiming that workers in make-work underemployment (which is called "unemployment" by economists) should not be counted as employed. In your comparison, you cite ALL federal workers. We don't have a WPA or CCC now, nor any equivalent. Counting soldiers, FBI agents, park rangers, etc. as being the same as WPA or CCC is pretty bizarrely flawed. If those "right-wing"'ers did the same, they'd have to count about another what 5 million federal employees in their numbers? You don't have to lie to criticize the president ...
Dear Anonymous,
It would appear that reading comprehension is a challenge.
A.) I quoted David Sirota. The calculations are his, not mine. If you have a problem with them, that your problem to David Sirota, not me. B.) Paragraph 1 indicates the official Unemployment Rate is on the order 7.2%. C.) Right-wingnuts use a different method of counting -- different from the Official Unemployment rate. D. In order to compare apple and apples, one would have to use their method of counting.
I think I detect your knee jerking.
Oh, yeah. I find it a challenge to take anonymous postings seriously. It suggests that, unlike David Sirota, you're unwilling to stand by your comments.
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