Jobs statistics are a sticky, complex topic for PolitiFact: as noted by PolitiFact Ohio writer Mark Naymik in this recent PolitiFact (PF) ruling on Joe Biden: “Politifact also frequently points [out] that when framing job figures, slicing and timing make all the difference.”
And wouldn’t you know, PF even knows quite well what selection bias is. Only it calls it for what it really is: cherry picking: (emphasis added)
Take, for example, some other accurate statistics we can create using the same figures.
If job growth continues on pace in 2010, employment still will have decreased by 1.6 million jobs since Obama took office in 2009.
While Obama is on a pace to add 2.356 million jobs in 2010, Bush created 2.36 million jobs in 2005 (a specific year to year comparison).
And from April 2003 to June 2007, while Bush was president, the U.S. economy added almost 7.9 million jobs.
All true. And all in seeming contradiction to Wasserman Schultz's claim.
Why?
Because we cherry-picked numbers to make our point.
But the ruling that is the subject of this Lil White Lies post is not about Joe Biden or Debbie Wasserman Schultz. It's about a claim by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell about Texas Governor Rick Perry's "job creation performance" in an op-ed piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
My conservative counterpart is correct in how PolitiFact approaches job numbers claims: “PolitiFact's history of (appropriately) treating job creation claims as dealing with net job creation where the context warrants taking them that way.” So, in that same track, is he also correct when he says that PolitiFact failed to note that Rick Perry “did not mention the term "net" while talking about job gains?
Here is the complete quote from McDonnell:
Look no further than growing and diverse Texas, a state Democrats targeted in 2010, where data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that under Gov. Rick Perry’s leadership the state has created more jobs over the last decade than the rest of the states combined. That’s a record of job creation the Obama administration can only dream about.
There is no mention of this “net” by McDonnell throughout his op-ed piece extolling the great things all the new Republican governors have been doing for their states. For example, he says about his own, Virginia: “Since February 2010, 67,400 new jobs have been created in Virginia and our unemployment rate has fallen to 6% from 7.2%.” He says about Wisconsin: “In six months, 25,000 private-sector jobs have been created.”
