Misleading Title Galore: "Unemployment drops in battleground states"

This story claims that unemployment was down in 8 out of 10 battleground states. The 8 are listed below but note that the story was comparing August 2004 to September 2004. The report also notes that unemployment rose in 22 states during the month and fell in 23 states. One of the 8 states mentioned as seeing lower unemployment was Ohio, which AB discussed earlier today.

Comparing the Sept. 2004 unemployment rate with the rate as of Dec. 2000 for each state, we get:

Colorado: rose from 2.7% to 4.9%

Florida: rose from 3.6% to 4.5%

Minnesota: rose from 3.4% to 4.6%

Nevada: fell from 4.4% to 3.9%

New Hampshire: rose from 4.7% to 5.3%

New Mexico: rose from 4.7% to 5.3%

Ohio: rose from 3.9% to 6.0%

Pennsylvania: rose from 4.2% to 5.3%

Maybe those in the casino sector are better off than they were four years ago, but most voters know the economy is worse off than it was when Bush took office – even if Bush and the press make silly claims to the contrary.