Matt Hoy of Hoystory’s method of looking at PolitiFact (PF) is to point out seeming contradictions, and it seems like he has hit on one here again. A comparison of rulings on statements by Mitt Romney and Adam Hasner, on basically the same subject has come down to, as Hoy headlines, the “same idea, (with) different results.”
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The writers for these two PF pieces were Amy Sherman of PolitiFact Florida for the first one on Hasner, written in late May, and Lou Jacobson for PF National for the one on Romney in mid-June. Both seem to be covering the same subject: the rate of job recovery and/or job creation under Obama—is it the worst since Hoover and/or the Great Depression? Amy Sherman found a statement by Adam Hasner, a former Florida state legislator (in his criticism of its Senator Bill Nelson and Obama), to be Mostly True, who was talking about job creation, while Jacobson determined Romney’s statement to be False, who was talking about job recovery. Or, was it thus: while it’s Mostly True (Hasner) that this is one of the weakest post-recession job creation periods since the Great Depression, it’s False (Romney) that it’s been the slowest job recovery since Hoover during the Great Depression.
Adam Hasner (tweeting): “Obama-Nelson economic record. Job creation ... at slowest post-recession rate since Great Depression” (Mostly True)
Mitt Romney (on the campaign trail): “It's taken longer to get Americans back to work than it took during the Great Depression. This is the slowest job recovery since Hoover. It breaks my heart. I want to get us back to work.” (False)
Both Jacobson and Sherman use the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) as a source of data. As stated by Amy Sherman in her ruling on Hasner:
According to NBER, there have been 13 recessions since the one that started August 1929 and lasted for 43 months, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has month-by-month jobs data for 12 of them.
This was the basis for Sherman’s awarding a ruling to Hasner of Mostly True: “Hasner's off by only one recession out of 12.”
