(Vanity) - Help debunk Democratic economic data

[Bigoleelephant]

I am sorry for posting a vanity but I need some help in debunking this guys data. I have been able to do so on the immigration and war on terror issues. My knowledge of the economy is not up to snuff. I know some of these numbers are manipulated. I just need the help of the fantastic Freepers to show me which ones.

Thanks in advance.

WAGES

American families have consistently seen their incomes decline during the Bush Presidency—even when calculating only from the end of the last recession.

• For 2005, average real weekly wages fell 0.4% from $552.75 in December 2004 to $550.60 in December 2005. Since the end of the recession, they are also down 0.4% from $552.58 in November 2001. [BLS]
• For 2005, average real hourly wages fell 0.4% from $16.40 in December 2004 to $16.34 in December 2005. Since the end of the recession, they have been effectively stagnant, dropping one cent from $16.35 in November 2001. [BLS]
• Since the 2003 tax cut, real hourly wages have fallen 2.2% and real weekly wages have fallen 1.6%. [BLS]
• Real median household income has fallen each year Bush has been in office and by nearly $1,000 since the recession 2001 [U.S. Census Bureau, Income Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004, Aug. 2005, Table A-1.]

EMPLOYMENT GROWTH

The President focused on job creation in both recent speeches, but employment growth in the current recovery has been the weakest on record.

• Monthly private employment growth has averaged a meager 59,700 per month even excluding the last recession and the months leading into it—the weakest monthly average for any recovery of this length. [BLS]
• The 4. 5 million job growth in the last two and a half years that the President brags about is weak by historical standards. In the last three recoveries, the economy created 7.9 million jobs during the corresponding 30 month period—3.4 million jobs more than we’ve seen in the last two and a half years–even with a smaller workforce and smaller population. [BLS]
• The only reason the unemployment rate has fallen to 5% is that a smaller share of the population is working or actively seeking work today compared to before the recession. If labor force participation were as high today, as it was before the recession the unemployment rate would be 6.6%–1.6 points higher than today’s official number [BLS]
• Indeed, this is the first time on record that portion of the population holding a job is down 48 months after the end of a recession.

POVERTY

After seeing enormous gains in the fight against poverty under President Clinton, the poverty rate has risen each of Bush’s years in office, as an additional 5.4 million people have fallen into poverty since 2000. [Census, Aug. 2005, Table B-1]

• The poverty rate has risen each year since the end of the recession—from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.7% last year as 4 million people fell into poverty. [Census, Aug. 2005, Table B-1]
• African American poverty has also jumped—from 22.7% in 2001 to 24.7% in 2004 as nearly 1 million (864,000) African Americans have fallen under the poverty line. [Census, Aug. 2005, Table B-1]
• Child poverty rate is on the rise—jumping from 16.3% in 2001 to 17.8% in 2004. As 1.3 million children under 18 have fallen into poverty [Census, Aug. 2005, Table B-2] • This is the only recovery on record where poverty increased from the second to third year after the recession. [Census, Aug. 2005, Table B-1]

SAVINGS

Though incomes have fallen, consumer spending growth has continued to propel the economy. Unfortunately, this combination has pushed the personal savings rate to historic lows, debt burdens to historic highs, and exacerbated our already unsustainable current account deficit.

• The personal savings rate has plummeted this year, hitting -2.18% in August—a level not seen since the Great Depression. [Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)]
• Americans now pay a record 13.6% of their disposable income to service their debt. Since we’ve had to borrow at record rates to spend beyond our means, debt burdens have risen considerably. [Federal Reserve]
• Thanks in part to our recent fiscal deterioration, net national savings have dropped from 4.9% when Bush took office to -1.0% last quarter– its lowest level since the Great Depression. [BEA]
The transition from budget surpluses to budget deficits was a major factor in this shift to dissavings. In January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected a more than $5 trillion 10 year surplus. Today, Goldman Sachs predicts a $5 trillion cumulative deficit over the next 10 years. They cite the extension of the tax cut as the “single biggest factor underlying” that prediction.
• The current account has deficit exploded—hitting a record $199 billion in the first quarter this year and on pace to top $800 billion this year. [BEA, Global Insight Inc. projection in Greg Hitt, “Trade Gap Eases, but Deficit Poised to Break a Record,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/17/05]
• We now have to borrow about $3 billion from abroad every business day to support our habits.

[rj45mis]

My fellow republican, even if you could debunk each one of your liberal opponent's economic assertions, he would just come up with another lie about how terrible the Bush administration's policies have been. You cannot get a Bush-hating liberal to look at and accept the facts, if the facts don't support their misguided ideology.

[Always Right]

What recession are they talking about????? A recession is two consecutive quarters with negative growth that hasn't happened during the Bush years, even counting 9-11. The closest we came to a recession was between the 3rd Quater of 2000 (when Bill CLinton was in office) and 9-11. But we still had a couple quarters of positive growth, so that did not even meet the technical definition of a recession.

[Always Right]

BTW, the Democrats mention this fictious 'recession' 10 times in these talking points. That is 10 lies right there.

[Bigoleelephant]

I know. I know.

That was even the context of my last email. I told him he wins. I told him he was employing the Democratic strategy of throwing out a multitude of meaningless and false statistics flawlessly. There just isn't enough time to reply to all the lies.

He then sent this email.

[Always Right]

Here's the offical GDP data. Show me the recession. The first number is in current dollars, the second number is in 2000 dallars (takes into account inflation)

2000q4 3.8 .. 2.1
2001q1 2.8 .. -0.5
2001q2 4.4 .. 1.2
2001q3 0.2 .. -1.4
2001q4 3.6 .. 1.6
2002q1 4.3 .. 2.7
2002q2 3.7 .. 2.2
2002q3 3.9 .. 2.4
2002q4 2.4 .. 0.2
2003q1 4.4 .. 1.2
2003q2 4.8 .. 3.5
2003q3 9.7 .. 7.5
2003q4 4.9 .. 2.7
2004q1 7.8 .. 3.9
2004q2 7.9 .. 4.0
2004q3 5.3 .. 3.1
2004q4 5.9 .. 2.6
2005q1 7.0 .. 3.4
2005q2 5.8 .. 3.3
2005q3 7.6 .. 4.2
2005q4 5.1 .. 1.8
2006q1 9.0 .. 5.6
2006q2 6.3 .. 2.9

Not even 1 Quarter of Negative Growth since 9-11

[Bigoleelephant]

Thanks for the info. I can show him this and there is no need to go any further when his initial premise is flawed.

[A.Hun]

First, you should remember that statistics are easily twisted to reflect whatever position you want...however..

On wages: Real wages does not reflect real income...
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_buzzcharts/buzzcharts200408270908.asp

In spite of that, real wages are up this year 4.2%

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/realer.nr0.htm

On employment growth:

Jobs are always the lagging indicator after a recession. High gains in productivity over the last four years depressed the labor market. When you factor in the availability of 12,000,000 illegals that are off the books, the points you mentioned are misleading.

The current unemployment rate is at 4.7 % That is full employment for all practical purposes. That reflects manufacturing and non farm jobs, but does not include the self employed.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Poverty: Poverty rates hinge on far more than just economics. The "graying" of America and the continuing rise of unwed mothers and lack of father's income are factors. However, the calculation of poverty is a strange subject anyway. Apparently there are 48 diffferent thresholds for poverty depending on the make up of the person being classifies. There is no parameter for the impoverished's locale. Here are some references:

http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032006/pov/toc.htm
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/overview.html

On personal savings: This is a total red herring. Personal savings have been on a downward trend since the 1980's. Personal savings does not reflect capital gains such as appreciation of housing. Lack of personal savings reflects more of a difference in modern finance than a bad trend. This is a good explanation here.

http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2002/el2002-09.html


From experience, your lib friend won't listen anyway, so don't waste much time with him. We are enjoying probably the best economic conditions of my life (I'm 49). Labor unions are in retreat, the stock market is fairly (IMHO) valued, interest rates are in a "sweet spot", inflation is nonexistent except for energy costs, home ownership is at an all time high, and federal taxes are the lowest probably since they began them.

About our nations debt....our total debt is less than the value of farmland in the US. In other words, not enough to get upset about.

[CharlesWayneCT]

DOn't have the statistics with me, but when the unemployment rate is dropping, the "average" wages can go down even though the "average person's" wages can go up.

Wages are averaged either by mean or median. In either case they include only people working.

If you have an influx of people into lower-wage jobs, even though they used to make "zero" dollars and now make money, their "zero" dollar earnings were not part of the average.

So if you add 2 million jobs to the economy, but those jobs are below the average wage, you will actually PULL DOWN the average wages.

BTW, if you throw a couple of multi-millionares in jail for fraud, you will ALSO pull down the average wages.

What you WANT to compare is the average wage change for employed workers. That statistic would compare only the wages of people who did not have a substantive change in their employment on a year-to-year basis.

I can't find that number, unfortunately.

[Bigoleelephant]

Excellent work. Thanks so much.

[Bigoleelephant]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate your input and it will be passed along.

[A.Hun]

You're welcome.

[1rudeboy]

The Heritage Foundation is the best source of anti-lib/anti-paleo economic information, in my opinion. Along the the right margin, click on "Economy." Also, "Trade & Economic Freedom" is good.

I agree with the poster above who said do not challenge "their" facts, as they are usually wrong. Provide your own. At the Heritage website, there is an excellent discussion of some false income numbers provided by Gannett.