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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."
Leave a Comment:
How many women has Obama taken on his 90 plus golf trips?
None. And look at this fact:
http://freebeacon.com/hostile-workplace/
Obama lies,
Does Mitt lie too?
Paul W... Geez it's getting to be a chore continuing to educate the grossly misinformed right in here. It's the Bureau of Labor Statistics that publishes jobs statistics.
If you already knew that it makes your entry even more puzzling... Hopeless.
Romney, your running a second heat of being a worse Liar than Obama.
Elephant is a pillar
Elephant is like a wall
Elephant is like a giant snake
The blind men talking.
It may be a good idea to research what Mormons believe in and how their church is structured. It appears to me to be a cult. Even Mormons in good standing cannot access the "inner sanctum". Non Mormons are ever allowed in the LDS church or temple. Even Secret Service men cannot conduct an inspection and sweep of an LDS temple. Its a cult and Joseph Smith is a good story teller that apparently lost the golden plates. According to Smith, God told him, "all other religions are an abomination in God's sight". Perhaps thats why they call themselves "latter day saints".
Hitobito-You are nothing but a bigot. Not worthy of a response.
This is like Bush setting fire to a house and Obama coming along when 20% of the house is burned, grabbing a hose, but not getting the fire out until another 30% burned. Then the police ask Romney what happened and he says, "Obama is responsible for 3/5 of the burning."
haha...nice!
The_Mick - The problem with Obama in your little analogy is not that the house was 20% burned when he got there, or even that it burned another 30% since then. The problem is that he DIDN'T put the fire out as you supposed, but that the fire is burning the whole house down and he hasn't a clue how to do it so he stands around blaming anyone who wants to try. That's leadership for you. And the amazing thing is that you see what he is doing and you are OK with it.
Crestlinecbs,
Obviously you don't understand the analogy...or you simply don't recall or understand what has transpired over the last 3 to 4 years.
Yes...the house was on fire. Obama's first month of office we lost 700,000 jobs due to the on going recession. We had a housing crisis (no pun intended) and the stock market was plummeting. We were involved in two wars without paying for them. The house was on fire.
The first year Obama spent much of his time attempting to pass legislation to help ease the crisis. The stimulus was one piece and passing an extension to unemployment benefits was another. You could say that this was Obama grabbing the hose to put the fire out.
We have had 27 months of private sector job gains....the stock market has doubled. Sure, the fire isn't out but Obama has saved the foundation.
You join Romney in the analogy....you blame the President for not fixing this huge mess in 3 years of time. In reality, nobody could have stepped in and returned this country to what it was before Bush destroyed it in three years. Nobody. But Obama is putting the fire out and the numbers prove it.
Vipp - You say nobody could have put the fire out. I guess the American people will decide whether they believe that or not in November. I would suggest that you not hold your breath...
To further the fire analogy--it's like Obama trying to put out the fire when congressional Republicans are standing on the hose, so that nothing comes out but a trickle.
Crestlincbs,
Please read. I didn't nobody couldn't put the fire out...I said nobody could have put the fire out in 3 years. The recession hadn't even reached its peak when Obama was elected.
Crestlinecbs...you seem to be amazed that nobody sees your misguided points about obama. That's because anyone with half a brain realizes that A) Obama didn't cause the recession B) That Republicans admitted that they their only goal was to make Obama a one term President and thus were not willing to help Obama fix this mess and C) That Obama is not the radical that people like yourself have attempted to make him out to be.
The economy is improving Crestlinecbs....ask yourself...what is Mitt going to run on? If the economy continues to improve all he will be able to say is that he could have done it faster. He can't run on healthcare....his healthcare plan was the template for Obamacare. He can't say that Obama has made the country less safe....Obama killed Osama Bin Ladin and has had other black ops successes. Social issues will kill Romney....he would be better off staying away from those. What else?
I wish all of you would leave Obamacare alone. It's such a great deal that the Prez, VP, all members of Congress and Federal employees are not taking part!
Mer,
What's your alternative? The status quo?
Obama Lies... Re; golf trips... What on earth does that have to do with anything???
How many did Eisenhower take? How many did GHWB take? How many did Clinton take?
Really, what argument is trying to be made here other than something very, very empty.
Red necks don't play golf
You can see the utter incompetance of BO and his administration. It is incomprehensible how supposedly intelligent people could excuse him and his failed party. Libs are such idealogues that they can't even admit the obvious and call for another person to try and lead the party and country better than the current bufoon-in-chief. Romney has been highly successful in everything he has applied himself to and all you libs can do is call him names like jr high school children. And you do it in favor of someone who has never really done anything of note except get elected president of the US and do that terribly. The crazies on the left will go ballistic but moderates who are not swallowed up in partisan denial will elect the person with the track record who has at least a chance of fixing the mess we are in.
Crestlincbs,
Mitt's track record...hmm...raising taxes, state/government run healthcare, supported gay marriage, supported abortion, believed in global warming.....
Wait...which Mitt are you talking about?
crestlimbs: you are nothing but a political hack , not worthy of a response. :)
I'm not trying to advance the argument that many of Obama's promises haven't materialized. In shorthand, that means he lied. Romney has been caught in more outright lies and misstatements that Obama. But the settling factor that dooms Romney is that he is a very poor liar. In addition to being a very weak candidate, Romney is a second rate liar. American exceptionalism demands the best ~ therefore, Obama wins by default.
Exactly.
unfufilled promises are not the same thing as lies...unless the promises were made KNOWING IN ADVANCE that there was no possible way to achieve them and there never was an intention to achieve them.
Jim in Texas-You say Romney has been caught in outright lies and yet you don't cite even one. That's what happens when you hang out in an echo chamber filled with left wing loons like yourself. You think you can make unsubtantiated statements and everyone will just agree with you. Sheesh.
Crestlinecbs,
I just named a whole bunch in your other post. How about saying "I'm a conservative". That's a flat out lie.
Saying that his current positions have simply just evolved over time is a lie. He used to be a freaking Democrat...pro choice, pro gay rights, believed in global warming, and has said any and everything whenever needed to get elected.
Yes Romney lies.
crest: you are a political hack, not worthy of a response. :)
Vipp: romeny is a SEVERE conservative even. lol.
Vermontguy - Very pithy comeback, and apparently unable to give a response.
crest: 55.1. :)
(apparently you aren't either..lol).
what can I say? anyone who goes around saying "liberal loons" might as well hang a sign around his neck saying "i'm an idiot laugh at me", since clearly you can't be taken seriously.
Vipp - You wouldn't recognize success unless you could tax it. Now how about naming all of Obama's great successes, other than doing a bang-up impression of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
Vermontguy, No need to hang a sign around your neck, we are already laughing. Loon describes you perfectly. Look it up.
crest #59: "and all you libs can do is call him names...bufoon-in-chief."
LOLl, the irony of someone whining about OTHERS calling people names...calling the president "bufoon-in-chief". And saying someone else doesn't deserve a response and then whining when that is said about him.
Free humor doesn't get any better than this. how often does someone like crest make a fool of himself with his own posts? :)
Just like a republican
say ANYTHING to get elected
then keep the rich happy
& screw the rest !!
Read my lips, compare lies that's rich, like Romney the vulture capitalist's that cleaned the carcasses of business's, like pensions, health benefits, layed off workers, but managed to make huge fee's and profits for himself and bain capital!
Crestlinecbs... Take a look at the title of this article (for starters). Romney's a lying sack.
mer44... Are you serious? Where do you get this stuff. They are not exempt from the law, not federal employees, not the president or vice president and not Congress.
Another Obama apologist article.
yawn. another article pointing out the STUPIDITY of talking about job losses from the day a president takes over. As the article CORRECTLY points out...thats just plain inane. The job losses from early 2009 had nothing to do with obama..as anyone with any intelligence would understand. :)
it is OBVIOUS that analysis of job losses for an economic cycle should start at, well, the start of the economic cycle, not some arbitrary political date. well, obvious to some, but not to others. :)
Put another way Libertarian, what in the article do you beleive was false or misleading?
What is apologist about a deliberate misreading of Bureau of Labor Statistics data? Moreover, the article merely points out an inaccuracy in Mitt Romney's claim, it does not apologize for anything President Obama has done. It makes no claims other than to correct an obvious misrepresentation of data provided by an impartial Federal Agency. I am in awe of your zombieism sir, you've truly been throught the process haven't you?
Well, what do you know, MSDNC is disecting every word that Romney says and probably wants to audit his school and medical records right down to what his underwear size is and they can't so much as muster one question about the numerous LIES perpetuated by Obama. HUGE SURPRISE.
from 6 days ago, an article in msnbc: "
FACT CHECK: Romney, Obama gloss over realities"
hmmm...how odd..contradicts your entire post. lol.
Nick, it's obvious what picture Romney was trying to paint and it's also obvious that looking behind the numbers shows that he tried to disinform and mislead his audience.
Let's at least be honest about this.
Nick... Whaaaaaaaaaaaa... <sniff>
If he can't man up and show some character he should get out of Dodge.
Yes, the stock market has shown some slight "up and to the right" motion, but what would the DOW have looked like if Obama who loves unions and hates corporations had not taken office? I'm betting a steeper up and to the right motion for John McCain, whose policies would have been less hostile to business, and a nice sharp incline for Mitt had he been elected back then. Most politicians (McCain included) today do not have adequate education about the economy to know how to fix one. They learn how to get your vote, by telling you half truths. They have to tell voters half truths because their opponents will, too. Interestingly, we now have someone running who has economic knowledge and knows how to play the political game. Too bad he doesn't know how to play it as well as career politicians do. Both Obama and Mitt have been called liars, but Obama is much better at it. Have you ever met someone who can make anyone believe anything just by how they say it? Sadly, most voters will not be able to look past the conflicting stances Mitt had to take in order to get votes from two varying groups (liberal Massachusetts and the right wing GOP). What most people call a "flip-flopper" is actually a non over-opinionated person who strives to unify people of differing backgrounds. It's just too bad. It's too bad for those who need a strong economy in place to get a job. When there are more people than jobs we have to cut each others throats to just to get one. Even for people with jobs, they are not happy because they want a better one. It's too bad that Mitt had to run on the Republican ticket where "acceptance" is hard to achieve for a moderate. For the first time in a very long time, somebody with the right experience unexpectedly navigated the Republican-Democrat duopoly that has a stranglehold on our political system. Most of you will dismiss my comments as biased. I am as unbiased as they come. I don't favor any party. Only the one that can produce a candidate that can fix our economy. Some of you probably have other priorities. Fine. Perhaps you are happy with the jobs you have, or have no trouble finding the work you want. Remember the Clinton years when the internet boom made jobs more plentiful than people? I wish we could have it that way again. But right now it's just a wish that will never come true, because this country cannot elect someone real knowledge about the economy. It's too afraid. Obama is good enough. He gets a passing grade (above 50% percentile approval) and keeps the US a going concern in the world, but not as much a major player. The US is looking more like Europe. It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to pay taxes there.
So is Romney trying to draw a moral equivalent of fooling around with labor statistics with state-forced sodomy?
For every RW- or LWNJ that have, are, or will be posting to this thread....the only statistic that would be realistic to use in either Romney's or Obama's arguments would be this...From the lowest unemployment number and maximum number of jobs that this economy was supporting at the best point of the economy, to the highest unemployment numbers and the lowest number of jobs supported at the worst point of this economy, then back to the current numbers since the rebound has started, correlated to all of the economic data and policies that brought about those moves in the economy and employment, and ALSO correlated to the laws and lawmakers that brought those policies into being...I would then accept the conclusions as long as the report was compiled by someone other than the government.
Until then...ya'all oughta just STFU, because none of you know WTF you are talking about.
Time to fight fire with fire! I propose to all regular posters here that we take our battles to Fox's website. Let's start barraging them with the facts - just like the hardcore Repubs come here to spread their fictions. It only seems fair, doesn't it? Obama needs another four years to do endruns around all the obstructionism. If we can't turn things around by 2016, then hell, I'll even vote Republican. Just remember that we need to clean out Congress as well or we won't make any progress. Don't waste your time posting here anymore - this isn't the battlefield. We have to go to the source!
Nah. Why give Fox News' web site more hits and more ad revenue? Just ignore them like 98% of the country.
Did I miss the MSNBC Fact Check on Obama's statement “Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress” ?
I guess that facts are not important when it comes to Democrats.
that statement was discussed in detail in several articles here.
Vermontguy - I'll take your post as a "no". I'm talking about something like this article's top-headline, bold-faced, all-capital "FACT CHECK:"
Right. As has been stated many times, the President was not saying that it was unprecedented to overturn legislation; rather, it would be unprecedented to overturn legislation that previously would have been upheld by the Supreme Court.
As a lawyer, I'm amazed how many people heard "Marbury v. Madison" parroted like crazy and now consider themselves legal scholars. You can't actually fact check an opinion though, which is what the President gave.
Clotho - and you are just parroting the spin doctors' desperate attempts to recover from Obamas very unambiguous (and erroneous) statement by pulling a classic "What the President meant was ..." ploy. "As a lawyer," you should be able to see through such an obvious attempt to rescue Obama from his own mouth.
Romney has proven over and over again that he is a vote prostitute who panders to whatever group he is in front of. He will, - and has, - say ANYTHING to try to curry favor. It's impossible to tell what he truly believes (if anything) other than the rich deserve to be even richer. Oh, the guy has ZERO foreign policy experience, and then tries to criticize Obama for being "soft"? Like, who bagged Bin Laden (and many other key Al Qaida leaders)? who used drones? who deported far more illegals than GW Bush? who backed elimination of Qadhafi?
Please, please people use common sense, do not believe Romney, if any gender were unemployed by 92% we would know it. Romney claims he knows economics and he is not able to obtain simple statistics. Romney should have asked President Obama. The President did have a conference for women a few days ago. Common, you have to know that is a big lie by Romney. This is absolutely nutty. When I think Romney can't get any lower he does. Liar, liar, pants on fire. This still would not take away that he wants to close all the parent planned hood office and he supports the blunt ac and so forth. Give me a break!! The man is not able to tell the truth under no circumstances. This last act only continues to help President Obama.
So I am thinking that this is the way the next eight months is going to look. The main stream media slanting everything Mitt and his team says. But completely letting slide the ridiculous claims of President Obama. Mitt Romney is responsible for the increase of gas prices. Come on! News Flash...Obama's campaign slogan has changed from "HOPE and CHANGE" to "Blame Bush, no Blame Romney, wait no, Blame Anyone but ME!"
When was the last time msnbc fact checked any thing Obama has said?
The article cites politifact.com, which fact checks the President all the time. The most recent is here:
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/apr/10/barack-obama/how-many-americans-make-less-250000-year/
"98 percent of American families" make "under $250,000 a year."
Rated True.
Prior to that:
http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2012/apr/09/barack-obama/barack-obama-ad-says-us-oil-production-eight-year-/
"Under President Obama, domestic oil production is at an eight-year high."
Rated Mostly True.