Bush's tricky employment/net worth stats

In an email sent to RNC supporters (PDF), President Bush touts the state of the economy using some of his trademark misleading economic statistics:

Because Republicans acted and had an economic recovery plan, we have created strong economic growth and nearly 5.3 million new jobs in the last two and half years; the national unemployment rate has dropped to 4.6% -- that is lower than the average rate of the 1960s, 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s; productivity is up and household net worth is at an all-time high.

But as I've noted, the employment and net worth statistics are highly misleading.

First, Bush measures job growth from 2004 ("last two and a half years") even though he took office in January 2001 and passed his first tax cut in June of that year. When we look at job growth over the course of his term, the pictures is more grim (note that this graphic is from my post in December 2005 and hasn't been updated):

Similarly, I showed that the growth in household net worth is heavily concentrated at the top of the distribution in these two charts:

Sadly, the national press will probably print these claims without fact-checking them...

Comments

[Bryan]

"Sadly, the national press will probably print these claims without fact-checking them..."

What is there to fact check in this case? Are Bush's claims false? No. Misleading? No. THen umber of jobs has increased 5.3 million in 2.5 years, the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent and productivity and household net worth are at an all-time high. Looking at you chart second from the bottom, median net worth by income level changed far more in the second half of the Clinton presidency (1996-2000) than in the 6 years under Bush (2001-2006).

What you call "fact-checking" in this case is really framing the numbers in such a way that they look bad.