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In an effort to bolster his sagging poll numbers with female voters, Mitt Romney and his campaign have made this new charge: that women have accounted for 92 percent of the job losses since President Obama took office.
Here’s what Romney said yesterday while campaigning in Delaware:
"There's been some talk about a war on women. The real war on women has been waged by the Obama administration's failure on the economy. Do you know what percentage of job losses during the Obama years of have been casualties of women losing jobs as opposed to men? Do you know how many women, what percent of the job losses were women? 92.3 percent of the job losses during the Obama years have been women who've lost those jobs."
The Romney campaign also held a conference call making this same point. "The number of unemployed women has increased by nearly a million under Barack Obama," surrogate Bay Buchanan said. "Ninety-two percent of the jobs lost since he took office are women."
But First Read contacted the Bureau of Labor Statistics to get to the bottom of this 92 percent charge. The conclusion: The Romney campaign’s figures don’t tell the whole story.
The campaign, in a research document circulated yesterday and on its website, said the numbers come from the “Current Employment Statistics” database at BLS. The document notes that there was a net change of -740,000 nonfarm payroll jobs from January 2009 to March 2012 -- and that women accounted for 683,000 of those jobs.
That is accurate, according to BLS. But Brian Davidson, an economist at BLS, told First Read: “The math they use is correct; the terminology is completely wrong.”
Davidson noted that women actually make up a larger share of the workforce now than they did in Jan. 2008 before the financial meltdown, and since January 2009, it is a statistically insignificant change.
In January 2008, women made up 48.8 percent of the workforce; in January 2009, 49.5 percent; now 49.3 percent.
“Do we still have the same amount of women workers relative to men in the ‘net-change’? Yes we do,” Davidson said.
He added, “It’s like trying to pull a bunny out of a hat, but there’s no bunny inside.”
Independent fact-checkers like Politifact and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker also took on the claim.
Giving the claim a “Mostly False,” Politifact called it “misleading”: “We found that though the numbers are accurate, their reading of them isn’t.”
“One could reasonably argue that January 2009 employment figures are more a result of President George W. Bush’s policies, at least as far as any president can be blamed or credited for private-sector hiring,” Politifact wrote. “We reached out to Gary Steinberg, spokesman for the BLS, for his take on the claim. He pointed out that women’s job losses are high for that period of time because millions of men had already lost their jobs. Women were next. … [I]f you count all those jobs lost beginning in 2007, women account for just 39.7 percent of the total. … There is a small amount of truth to the claim, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”
The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, begins this way: “[W]e frown on the somewhat arbitrary dividing line of measuring jobs statistics by presidential terms. It is a common journalistic — and political — metric. But restarting the employment clock from the moment the president takes the oath of office doesn’t tell you much about a his performance, especially since it takes time for the new president’s policies to take effect.”
In fact, he writes, “[T]here is less to this stat than meets the eye. … If you start the data in February, then the overall job loss is just 16,000 jobs—while women lost 484,000 jobs. … How could women lose more jobs than the overall total? It’s a function of the dates one picks.”
And notably: “[T]he picture becomes clearer if you start running the data from the date the recession began — December 2007. With that starting point, the total decline in jobs was just over 5 million, with women accounting for nearly 1.8 million of those jobs. Now look what happens when we just look at the past year, March 2011 to March 2012. Men gained nearly 1.9 million jobs while women gained 635,000 jobs.”
*** CORRECTION *** An earlier version of this post noted that the Romney campaign used numbers from January 2009. The campaign has reached out to First Read and notes that it used January 2009 as a "baseline."
"We use January 2009 as the baseline, which means the first month of losses charged to Obama is the decline in February vs. January," said campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.
*** UPDATE *** Saul also passes along a letter written by its policy director, Lanhee Chen, to dispute the Politifact story (and "Mostly False" rating) that attempted a fact check on a Tweet by Saul referencing the numbers. Chen accuses Politifact of a "failure to focus on the appropriate context."
"First, why should it matter that men had already lost millions of jobs?" Chen wrote. "Was it now women’s 'turn'? Is this part of the President’s conception of “fairness” that he talks about so frequently? If the data showed the opposite (i.e. that women had been disproportionately hurt prior to the President taking office), we imagine you would have used that as an indictment of Ms. Saul by arguing that the trend was inherent to the recession and predated the President."
Chen concluded, "In summary, your piece confirms Ms. Saul’s claim as accurate, and then relies on a direct contradiction with a prior Politifact piece and incorrect claims from two publicly acknowledged Obama supporters (including one Administration official!) as the basis for rating it “Mostly False.” I hope you will agree that this rating was inappropriate and that the piece does not reflect the journalistic standards to which your organization intends to hold itself. Please retract the piece and issue a correction as soon as possible."
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The one thing Gingrich said during his campaign that I totally agree with is that Romney is a liar which is exactly what he is. He is a walking lie.
I can't imagine anyone NOT in the top2% voting for what amounts to "The American Taliban." Strange that the people accusing the President of being a Muslim are the ones trying to turn American into the next Middle East. Ladies smarten up and don't vote against YOUR interest and the interest of all the women in your life.
I see you did last election
Complaining about MSNBC when they give you a forum is ridiculous. Fox won't even let you post a comment. Fox doesn't want an actual fact posted on their website, it gets in the way of their relentless propaganda. They learned it from Rush. Don't let dissenting voices screw up your meme. It might make people who believe everything we say have some doubts and go look for some reliable facts. We like them better as parrots.
And all the news agencies including FOX gave more to the DEMORAT side than the REPUBLICAN side.
Is there really that many liberals out there that think we should have just one person think for ourselves, to spend our money.
How many of you liberals actually think that it is ok for them to take from you and give it to someone else even if they can work a job.
Since Romney is the etch a sketch candidate, he can make up something one day and say something totally different the next day. His advisers on this concept is Fox News because they are great at spinning the truth in many ways.
wow youpeople that think fox is against the demorats they donate more to the demorats than the republicans, Unlike MSNBC that donates 99% to demorats.
So you think MSNBC is not bias against republicans, but FOX is bias against demorats.
You do know that ALL news media outlets gave more to the DEMORATS THAN THEY gave to the REPUBLICANS.
Watch out here comes Slick Willard mitting his romney.
Are you saying CLINTON is GAY
Interesting that yesterday we could not post comments about the unemployment numbers, and today the article is gone.
Now for the women here believing that Romney and the republicans want to take away all your rights; you have to be more intelligent than that.
It's not what "the women here believe", that is important, it IS WHAT THEY ABSOLUTELY KNOW ABOUT THE DECEIVING t-GOP, that has alarmed them!!
That's the intelligent response to the GOP, regardless of gender!
Any woman (or man), anywhere, voting for ANY GOP candidate at any level of government, would be completely foolish to do so.
As is the usual, when the kkkarl-rover led, corporate owned t-GOPEer elitist thieves and liars have nothing to go on, they twist facts (lie) and make up a story.
And, of course, as with this story -- when "fact-checked", this false claim by howdy-doody romney, serves only to anger intelligent women even more.
Thus, this entire sleazy GOP contrived scheme to try to lure women back, already has, and will continue to, BACKFIRE!!
You now, I once believed that the bush-idiot was the dumbest, low-life, criminal, politician our Nation has ever had to endure... but, romney, is certainly in the same bush-idiot-criminal-league as the bush-idiot was, is, and will always remain.
How much more pathetic a "field" could the GOP put out there???? They stil lhave jeb?? LMAO
Anyone who claims there is an honest politician is a liar! Anyone who believes everything Obama states or Romney states is a Fool!
republicans are trying to top the democrats in who can put out the worst possible candidate.
I see BUDDY has no CLUE, he can NOT look up any GOOD solid facts, SO he makes them up like the rest of these libtards on here
Gee. Republicans will lie to win. Who knew??
so will democrats, so what ??
Like OBUMMER DID in 2008
Wish to preface this by saying I have never posted before. I have reired now and have more time for these silly things.
I would like to say that I voted for Ronald Reagan as well as Bill Clinton. Voted for Bush the first time but not in 04. Voted for Obama in 08. I say this to show that I am not a patsy to any political agenda, I like to think my vote goes for the person that is best suited for the position.
Some of the things that are posted by the more liberal posters on this board are simply not true. I watch MSNBC and I watch Fox. You have to wade through what both are saying to come up with something that might make some sort of sense. It seems that the more liberal among us have no time for anything other that what there news folks report. Not saying Fox isn't bias but come on dig a little deeper than Racheal Maddox.
With all that being said I would like to remind I did vote for Obama in the last election. I, like many of my friends will not be doing so in the next one. He has had his chance. For you that wish to say the Republicans block everything he tries to do(which I have discovered I believe is a good thing) need to remember he had the complete control for two years and really his only accompolishment has been to dig us deeper in hole we were already started into.
Now I am sure the left wing folks on this board will say how I have missed all the fine things he has done and that I AM JUST A RIGHT WINGER in disquise. That could be no farther from the truth. I am not a big Romney fan but he will be getting my vote this year. If he dont work out in four years I will be the first one to say let's get rid of him and give Mrs. Clinton a chance.
I tell you this guy Romney is such a con artist - the war on women is by the Republicans and by Romney. Most women in this country are quite intelligent and see what the Republicans are trying to do to women and their rights. Romney by trying to blame President Obama is a cheap shot and just shows us once more how Romney speaks nothing but untruths. Forget the White House Mr. Romney as it will not be yours
You TROLLS there is no war against WOMEN.
The demorats are just trying to get you to think there is so they will get more votes. They know that they can NOT win by looking at what good has OBUMMER done for this country so far.
Like the old saying goes quit telling lies about the Republicans and we will quit telling the truth about the DEMORATS.
TYPICAL GOP HOG WASH! Most of those types buy into the Rush Limpdicks & Sean Hannity's of the world....pathetic.
Obama.Biden 2012 "We Got It Straight In 2008!!!"
Although the author is reluctant to admit it, Romney's figures are correct. The left may be able to spin away a few percentage points here or there but the fact still remains that the policies passed by Obama during the time he had a democrat House and Senate have been devastating to women in the workforce. If you consider those who returned to worse with less considerable pay, of which I know quite a few, Romney's statement in regards to Obama's negative effect on women is not nearly strong enough.
What Obama policies have been "devastating to women"? The point of the article is that the losses Romney refers to happened before Obama passed any policies. I'll add that they were made worse when in 2010 when the GOP took over the House and decided that teachers (who are predominantly women) aren't worth keeping employed. The GOP went state by state firing government employees who are largely women.
Mitt get off this forum. Of coiurse we beleive you and I suppose you think the moon is made of green cheese too.
Here is what happens when you have a budget like OBUMMER.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J6TcpfBHlbs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Every, thing that BHO, Axlerod & DNC along with the willing participation of mainstream media is calculated in a political application format. From what Barack eats for breakfast right down to how he ties his shoes.
I mean everything there is controlled, handled viewed thru/with political machine precision they are not living like real people, more like just acting out a movie script. Hillary Rosen was just the latest actress to play her part in this for public consumption epic presentation of "FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION" The Movie \ sadly it's a Reality show that has dire consequences. However this is being played out in real life so there are variables. but when reality kicks in they have a innumerable team of production assistants and damage control specialists to spin the script the way they need to for the most politically expedient and correct(in their eyes) public relations & manipulation outcome.
All this being a Gross disservice and maniacal wrong perpetrated on firstly the American people and for that matter the entire world. Case in point; fast and furious op. resulting in our own immigration official being killed. (granted the criminals that killed him would have used any weapon available fact remains it was a gun traced to f&f op.) Also countless hundreds or even thousands people in central and south America affected by this. Not much outrage displayed or Legal ramification reported in mainstream media. { keep it quiet} convenient lies!
Another point: trillions in debt, especially wasted money sent to political cronies for failed and still failing propositions (won’t elaborate any more than that you know what I mean.)
Bottom line is America, you/we can continue to just play a part in this fallacy or we can collectively roll the credits on this flick. And move on to a Reality based upon truth, justice and the American exceptionalism that has honestly propelled us thru well over 200 years of prosperity unseen anywhere else in world history.
vote 2012
Another brain-washed Teabagger has spoken.
Why doesn't someone ever take these idiots running for office and to task for making claims they know are false . These dogs will do and say anything to get elected.
Nitt Witt Romney and Michelle (I don't have a brain) Bachman should be run out of town on a rail. I've heard this crap time and time again from people running for office. Do you really expect the American people to trust you when you find it so easy to make false statements?
Like Abe Lincoln said: 'You can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all of the time.'