Fun With Graphs And Stats

Matt Yglesias show cases the intellectual dishonesty spin moves for which he gets the big paycheck; Mickey Kaus highlights a brutal takedown right in Matt's comments.

Here’s a look at overall private sector employment during the Obama years:

The conservative argument about this is that the rebound hasn’t been sharper because of the over-reaching state. But as you can see we’ve actually had a sharp contraction in the number of people working for the government. This has been especially notable at the local level, where we’ve had large losses of teachers:

But let's cut to the first commenter, Peter Schaeffer:

This is cynical BS. MattY is cherry picking the data to produce a conclusion he finds expedient. In real life the fall in private sector jobs has been considerably greater than public sector jobs. Moreover, public sector jobs grew much faster in the run up to the crash. 

A few more pictures will tell that story.  Here is private sector employment from January 2000:

Private employment peaked at the start of the recession (Concidence?  I think not!) with roughly half the job losses occuring before Obama took office; the employment figure eventually plunged to a level not seen since the 90's and has since climbed back to the level of early 2004.  But what about the public sector (excluding the Federal government)?

State and local government had more employees at the end of the recession than they did at the start (as was also true in the 2001 recession), so all of the local government job losses occured under Obama; the decline so far has been to a level seen in 2005.

I understand that Democrats want to throw a bone to their public sector union supporters, but the real job problem is in the private sector.

Comments

[Cecil Turner]

The rebuttal graphs tell the story pretty well, but even they are misleading. The important thing to note is that the private employment numbers are a factor of ten more than the public ones. So even if the public sector graph declined the whole scale, it'd still be but a tithe of the private decline in total numbers (and consequent effect on total unemployment).

But that just emphasizes your point: trying to blame the unemployment stats on public sector declines is fundamentally unserious (and yes, dishonest).

[Clarice]

Re yesterday's discussion about the Obama claim that he sometimes sends checks, the WaPo reviews a book just out, reveling 10 Obama sympathy letters. The reviewer finds the letters less than inspirational. One of the recipients was so desperate she sold hers for $7k. still no word about a check from the Pres.

[DebinNC]

Biden was outraged at the charge that Obama's "jobs bill" jobs were "temporary", but the charts seem to prove with Porkulus they certainly were and ditto their latest boondoggle.

[DebinNC]

Obama fan Ron Reagan (Junior) reviews the 10 letters book for WaPo. After noting how busy Obama must be he writes:

"Still, what’s the point of the exercise when all you can muster for a mother whose son is risking his life for your Afghan nation-building policy are two lines and a scrawled signature? If there is an awkward empty space in “Ten Letters,” it is the unsatisfying contribution of the scribbler-in-chief."

[Gmax]

I have been convinced for some time now that when the next edition of Websters comes out, the edition will list under intellectually dishonest a link to ThinkProgress and of course multiple links there to Matt Y.

[Karl L]

Another way of looking at declines is in percentages off of peak.
In Yglesias' graphs, the decline in private sector jobs from 111,000 is 3.7%. The decline in public sector jobs is from 8,100 is 3.2%. By this measure, private sector employment was hit slightly harder than public sector (just outside the margin of error of 0.44%).

Yglesias commits a basic example of "how to lie with statistics" by cropping out important data. In the expanded graphs, we see the peak for private sector employment was a lot closer to 115,600, for a total private sector drop of 7.6% -- more than double the public sector drop which remains at 3.2%

[Jack is Back!]

DoT,

Go to the other thread for a LUN on Pujols vs. Hornsby and Frank Thomas. Also, go Chargers beat the Jets please to shut that fat idiot up. Obama should replace Biden with Ryan if Uncle Joe starts to speak sanely.

Now to stay on thread, perhaps we can Yglesias to to help Michael Mann out with his graphs. Double graph-gate.

[Ignatz]

--The conservative argument about this is that the rebound hasn’t been sharper because of the over-reaching state. But as you can see we’ve actually had a sharp contraction in the number of people working for the government. This has been especially notable at the local level, where we’ve had large losses of teachers.--

I think everyone is incorrectly granting Yglesias's ignorant and bizarre premise.
The conservative and libertarian criticism of the overreaching state causing a piss poor recovery has NOTHING to do with some marginal decline or increase in government goldbricks.
What is overreaching is the increase of Fed spending from 19 to 25% of GDP and the enormous deficit and debt overhangs it has brought with it. Most of the remainder of the overreach is the insane increase in regulations and busy body intrusive laws exemplified most glaringly by Barrycare. And as the last piece of the puzzle we have the Fed and TARP and all the other monetary and fiscal manipulations attempted.
The idea that if only the government could hire a few more three toed sloths to wait on us and direct our lives the recovery would be roaring is the kind of half baked stimulative idiocy that would give even Lord Keynes the dry heaves.

[centralcal]

Deb: Did Ron Jr. really write that? I didn't think he had any Obama criticism in him.

[Porchlight]

Ain't no public sector jobs without private sector jobs. But thanks to the stimulus, the unions, the "protect at all costs" nature of public sector jobs, and the lag between the damage to the private sector and its effects on revenues/state budgets, the hit taken by the public sector was softer, and later.

[DebinNC]

Yes, cc, Ron Jr. did. Another reviewer I saw repeated one of Obama's "letters" which in toto was something like: "Sorry, Tim, to hear about your problem. That's why we're pushing so hard to get X passed." Signed, BO. I'm not kidding. That's apparently typical of the 10 "letters" this WaPo Obamabot's book is lauding.

[Porchlight]

Obama's letters must be really bad for Ron Jr. to have even alluded to their unsatisfactory qualities.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the WH aides do research on the letter writers to discover their political leanings before giving them to Obama to write the responses. I bet he only writes back to Democrats.

[Army of Davids]

A few other assymetries.

Dollars to doughnuts that compensation growth (not to be confused w/ wages) in the public sector has outpace the private sector even more dramatically over the last decade.

When you add in the legacy pension/healthcare obligations coming down the pike for public sector (vs private sector) the gap should continue to increase.

It's not a pretty picture trying to reign in these union protected costs. And they are a weight that Main Street business carries as it tries to get up off the ground.

[Rick Ballard]

"more than double the public sector drop which remains at 3.2%"

Karl L.

Good analysis. If we take it one step farther we would note that the normal annual attrition rate for a 40 year career must be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5% and that a retirement does not add anyone to the ranks of the unemployed. We might also note that the PK-12 year old cohort which constitutes the victim universe for the indoctrination industry which Yglesias is whining about shrank by 1% in absolute numbers between 2007 and 2010. The final step is to look at the indoctrinator-victim ratio. In 2000 there were 7.22 victims for every job in the indoctrination industry, in '08 it was 6.74, '09 was 6.68, '10 was 6.69 and '11 is 6.8. IOW - 470K more indoctrinators would have to be laid off before the indoctrinator-victim ration became equal to that of 2000.

[Tully]

Hey, let's not just look at private employment versus state/local public employment. Throw federal employment into that mix, and see how disingenuous MattY is REALLY being.

Uh huh. Federal employment has GONE UP consistently. And that's not counting the census temps. Federal pay rates have also continued to rise.

Let's recap. Private employment since peak is down 7.6% Local/state government employment is down 3.2% And federal employment is UP 8.8%.

Yet somehow the answer to our problems is to let the federal govrnment spend more money.

[Extraneus]

Also, go Chargers beat the Jets please to shut that fat idiot up.

Tsk tsk.

[Andrew X]

It sounds OT, but I am sorta reminded of when I was arguing about GW Bush with people, re: the war and the economy, and I used to say, "Forget just for a moment every single solitary thing that you are seeing on TV and in newspapers. Now -- just look at your life and lives of those around you.... How many people do you know who are suffering from this horrible economy (in 2006)? How many people do you know who are directly affected by the Iraq War? (these were lefties, they don't know anyone who serves, they just talk about them). I would always see that 'gears turning' look you get when you have struck home in such an argument, and your opponent struggles to spin his way out of it.

Same deal here: who cares what these graphs say? ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics...", said Twain) Look around your life and that of those around you and ask how just how wonderful that private sector is doing.

Tout fini.

[Uncle BigBad]

You can get $7K for a letter from Obammy???

Hmmmm Maybe I'll write to him and see if I can get a response.

[Jane]

I bet he only writes back to Democrats.

Other than Uncle BigBad, I suspect only democrats write to him. I'd like to know if he wrote back to any white people.

[Porchlight]

I imagine he gets some irate letters from Republicans. But yeah, probably the sob stories are from Dems.