BUT WHAT REALLY ANNOYS ME IS WHEN A REPUTABLE SOURCE (like the Associated Press) "SPINS" THE "NEWS" in an attempt to influence us to arrive at an erroneous conclusion.
So, below is one newspaper article that in the last few weeks first confused me (it just didn't seem right) but later annoyed me as I thought through the information.
The Sentinel Record's headline from the Associated Press June 18th (SR not to blame, it just uses their news feed) stated that "Unemployment Rates Are Far Below US level in 16 States." At first, this sounds impressive but is it? There's really no surprise here, the unemployment rate nationwide is 4.7% and it's an average. I would expect many states to be below the average and many to be above the average. It's an average. So what's the big deal? This sounds so great but we all know it's meaningless since the economy is not that great. The real truth comes out in the third paragraph when it says, "Steady hiring has lowered unemployment throughout the U.S but rates have fallen for a bad reason: many of those out of work have stopped searching for jobs." So I thought, the government doesn't count those people any longer as unemployed (isn't that convenient?) This is confirmed by the lowest Labor Force Participation rate in years (what percent of the population is actually working).
The next nonsense in the article had to do with May's Arkansas unemployment rate of 3.8%. Sounds fantastic!! You'd think Arkansas was swimming in jobs with a booming economy. Income and sales tax collections should be so high that we should have more than enough money to fix our roads and infrastructure plus much more.
But, think about these facts which contradict our remarkably low unemployment rate. The population of Arkansas is 2.9 million. The number of adults, 18-65 in the state of Arkansas is 1.76 million. I add up all people in each age range.
If we multiply 1.76 million by 3.8% unemployment then only 67,000 adults should be "unemployed." If this was really the actual unemployment rate, then how come we now have 250,000 adults, who are living below 138% of the poverty level making them eligible to be on the Private Option (Arkansas Works)? Either 183,000 (250,000-67,000 unemployed) of those jobs are so extremely low paying that working adults are still in poverty, that part time workers are counted as employed, a large number aren't looking for work or there's something wrong with the 3.8% figure or a combination of the possibilities.
So, as I read this type of article and so many more, I remember the brilliant words of Mark Twain, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" and also "facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable." It has also said, "statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics."
We all need to be very careful with the "facts" we're exposed to from both the Left and the Right. We need not accept "facts" at face value. So, continue to be careful out there.
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Jack Sternberg, MD, is a retired medical doctor and Chairman, Garland County TEA Party Patriots in Arkansas, and a contributor to the ARRA News Service.
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