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September 07, 2004 It's called The Daily Mislead...and they mean every word of it Moveon.org affiliate Misleader.org publishes a semi-daily email called "The Daily Mislead"...and it lives up to its billing. This recent one is indicative, so let's fisk the righteous hell out of it.... Bush To Alter Economic Stats Again Well, we've actually already been over that recently at QandO. The number of uninsured may be at a record level, but only because the number of Americans is at a record level--what with us having, you know, good health care and all. As a percentage....well, that peak was "16.3% in 1998." Poverty? Well, for a bit of perspective, let's remember that the poverty rate cited by the Daily Mislead is 12.5%. The poverty rate in 1996 was 13.7%. We're well within the normal range. But instead of changing its economic and health care policies, the Bush administration today is announcing plans to change the way the statistics are compiled. The move is just the latest in a series of actions by the White House to doctor or eliminate longstanding and nonpartisan economic data collection methods.Actually, no such thing was announced. As even the Daily Mislead points out in the very next sentence.... In a Bush administration press release yesterday, the Census Bureau said next week it "will announce a new economic indicator" as "an additional tool to better understand" the economy.Note that this is not a change to methods of compilation. It's an additional statistic. Further, it will be "used as an additional tool to better understand the trends of the services sector of the U.S. economy", which--considering the dramatic structural changes in the US economy over the past 4 decades--does not seem terribly unreasonable. For my part, I'll withold judgement until I actually find out what sort of measurement they will introduce. (that happens Wednesday, Sept 8th) The change in statistics is being directed by Bush political appointees and comes just 60 days from the election. It will be the first modification of Census data in 40 years.Well, technically--i.e., "accurately"--it will be the first "new economic indicator" in 40 years. Modifications of Census data occur very regularly. What's more, the last "major redesign" of the Current Population Survey--the relevant data, as regards the labor force--was last redesigned in.....1994. (more on those changes here) By this point, you'd think the Daily Mislead could not be more laughably inaccurate, but you'd be wrong. Oh, how you'd be wrong.... This is not the first time the White House has tried to doctor or manipulate economic data that exposed President Bush's failed policies. In the face of serious job losses last year, the Associated Press reported "the Bush administration has dropped the government's monthly report on mass layoffs, which also had been eliminated when President Bush's father was in office."Here is the "MASS LAYOFFS IN JULY 2004" report. It was cleverly hidden on the front page of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can also see the monthly data for every month going back to the beginning of 2001 here. Similarly, Business Week reported that the White House this year "unilaterally changed the start date of the last recession to benefit Bush's reelection bid." For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions have been set by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private nonpartisan research group. But the Bush administration decided to toss aside the NBER, and simply declare that the recession started under President Clinton.Here, to some degree, the Daily Mislead has a point. The Bush administration has taken advantage of some legitimate uncertainty in the data to claim the recession started earlier than is recognized by the National Bureau of Economic Research. However, even the NBER has recognized the uncertainty of that data, and been willing to reevaluate their official stance on the dates of the recession. In fact, NBER member Victor Zarnowitz noted at about the time the Bush administration was advancing these arguments that "the recession started maybe November or December 2000 and lasted to November of 2001.". [it should be noted that they haven't moved their official date; it should also be noted that the NBER is positively glacial in making these judgements] Finally... For almost 75 years, the start and end dates of recessions have been set by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a private nonpartisan research group. But the Bush administration decided to toss aside the NBER, and simply declare that the recession started under President Clinton....it should be noted that--even assuming the NBERs March 2001-November 2001 dates are correct....and I do--the recession occurred almost wholly within the final fiscal year of President Clinton. Bush's first fiscal year began October 1st, 2001 (pdf). Until that point--including 7 of the 9 months of the recession--we were operating under the final Clinton-era budget. (none of which is to imply that the recession was Clinton's doing) Regardless of the dates, that recession occured almost wholly before Bush's first fiscal day in office. It's not for nothing they call it the "Daily Mislead". |