Bush's Last Month Sees Unemployment Hit 22%, According to Wingnuttia's Math

by: David Sirota

Fri Jan 09, 2009 at 23:33

OpenLeft commenter David Kowalski makes a really important point: 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 Franklin Roosevelt and 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, that unemployment rate is roughly 22 percent. Because, ya know, conservatives insist with a straight face that people who work for the government - people who build bridges, roads, airports, etc. - are actually welfare cases who shouldn't be counted as employed.

David Sirota :: Bush's Last Month Sees Unemployment Hit 22%, According to Wingnuttia's Math

So, just to sum up, based on conservatives' arguments, unemployment rates right now are in the neighborhood of unemployment levels not seen since the height of the Great Depression.

Now, I certainly believe unemployment today is way too high, and I also agree with those experts who say that the official unemployment rate undercounts the number of people actually unemployed (it does this by not counting people who have given up looking for work - ie. the long-term unemployed - as unemployed).

But clearly, the unemployment rate today is not at the same levels it was during the height of the Great Depression - and clearly, conservatives aren't willing to apply the same methods of counting jobs during the Great Depression today - because doing that would show how fast and loose they are with the facts.

That conservative Wingnuttia continues to employ the fuzziest of fuzzy math - and in the process, insult government workers - shows that their zeal to slander FDR and try to stop a new New Deal knows absolutely no bounds. I'm not surprised by that, of course - but it's important that we throw their math right back at them so that everyone can see how dishonest the right really is.

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Bush's Last Month Sees Unemployment Hit 22%, According to Wingnuttia's Math | 3 comments

Hey David (0.00 / 0)

Is there any network that would be interested in having a 2 on 2 left vs right debate on the legacy of FDR?

Given competent liberals on the pro-FDR side, I might even tune in to Fox News for that.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both

by: Anthony de Jesus @ Fri Jan 09, 2009 at 22:59:30 PM CST

reframing (0.00 / 0)

Rolling around in the mud with conservative ideologues is a waste of time and cedes too much ground to them from the start. There is no right answer here - they're all highly political interpretations - for example, you might as well start counting 14 and 15 year olds as unemployed post 1940, but that's not something i think is a super idea, though I do think counting the long-term unemployed in the United States is.

The three questions of real interest for me are these:

1) historical - did the new deal programs stimulate GDP growth and result in employment growth (whether public or private) and/or wage increases?

2) what would a stimulus package today look like to accomplish whatever goals we have (GDP growth, employment growth, wage increases, etc. being some of many options).

3) what are those goals? it's far from obvious that they're the same for everyone and yet one of the first acts of an obama administration is going to be a massive spending bill. we should have a voice in that beyond voting on change.gov.

by: dr anonymous @ Sat Jan 10, 2009 at 00:13:51 AM CST

Matter of Debate.... (4.00 / 1)

The two examples given here, WPA and CCC, have real problems with being classified as Government Jobs. I certainly agree that those in these programs deserve to be considered as "working" -- but neither WPA nor CCC was a classic job.

Both programs are perhaps better understood as sustaining or subsistance positions -- they were designed to pay or provide just enough to keep one more or less alive while at the same time taking millions out of the unemployed labor force pool seeking immediate jobs, who were, in pre-Unemployment insurance days, Pre minimum wage and Max. Hours days, bidding down wages, and contributing to the deflationary cycle. Many New Deal programs only make sense if you understand them as "work projects" that decrease immediate competition for private sector jobs, and thus allow other inflationary efforts to have a chance. Not only WPA and CCC were designed that way, but so too NYA, (National Youth Administration), ADC, some aspects of AAA(2) and others.

I would also call attention to other patterns that attained during the Great Depression, that skew employment and unemployment measures. Many of these do not have the catagory, Employed, but on short hours. A Black-White employed/unemployed measure does not provide a full picture of reality. In fact between 1930 and 34 in many industries the standard hourly pay rate was drasticly cut, and the more skilled workers were not laid off, rather they were put on very short hours. Reason: Industry wanted a means to preserve critical skills while at the same time lowering overall production to meet market requirements.

My own research in this area -- a study of skilled Tire Builders in the Rubber Industry prior to Union Recognition shows that the most valued skilled workers, Truck and Airplane Tire Builders, averaged between 9 and 11 hours work per week in 33-34, at a base wage rate down by 30% from the 1929 rate. These workers were very valuable top line workers, (Building a tire for a large vehicle using the technology of those days required both brute strength and an artists touch -- it took a strong man at least five years experience to master the craft,). Thus while this skilled labor pool lost roughly 80% of pre-depression income, they were rarely formally unemployed, or counted as such. In fact they were hardly even part time. This pattern -- lay off completely the lesser skilled, and short hours, short rate the most valuable and highly skilled, applied to virtually all heavy manufacturing in the pre Union (CIO) Depression Era. If you understand this industrial pattern, you will see why making an argument from overall unemployment statistics -- or a pattern of these, doesn't tell you all that much about whether conditions were improving, getting worse, or what.

To measure improvement in the skilled labor sector of the Rubber Tire industry, you would factor hours worked per week and base hourly wage.

by: Sara @ Sat Jan 10, 2009 at 21:52:48 PM CST