FuzzChart’s Dishonesty on Bush’s Fiscal Policy and Black Unemployment

Let me just say this plainly – Jerry Bowyer loves to lie to the readers of the National Review:

What the media did not note, however, is that the current rate of black unemployment is lower than the average rate achieved during President Bill Clinton’s second term, and that black unemployment has dropped precipitously since the full implementation of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in late May 2003.

Bowyer provides a chart of the black unemployment rate that starts on March 2003. Why is this dishonest? Let’s take his chart back to January 1993 and also include the overall unemployment rate. You may recall that the Bush crowd tried this average unemployment rate during Clinton’s Presidency nonsense during the 2004 campaign as well. Just as overall unemployment fell during Clinton’s eight years in office so did black unemployment. And just as overall unemployment rose during Bush’s first two years in office, black unemployment rose from 7.4% as of December 2000 to 11.3% during December 2002. That it had finally fallen to 7.9% as of February 2007 is simply a sign that economies do eventually recover from recessions. Whoops – black unemployment went back up to 8.3% last month.

We have also provided the labor force participation (LFP) and employment to population (EP) ratios for blacks from January 1993 to March 2007 – with the unemployment rate representing the difference. Notice the employment to population ratio went up from 54.2% to 60.7% while Clinton was in office. The drop in the unemployment rate was only part of the story as the labor force participation rate also rose. Now it was still lower than the overall labor force participation rate, which is additional reason why a smaller percentage of black adults are counted as employed. But notice how both the labor force participation rate and the employment to population ratio fell during Bush’s first three years in office – sort of like the general trends for the overall labor market. By December 2003, the black employment to population was had declined to 56.8%. It was also at 56.8% as of December 2004. Thankfully, it has risen to 58.5% as of March 2007. But this is far below where it was as of December 2000 and in fact lower than at any period during the last three years of Clinton’s second term.

Jerry Bowyer wants us to believe that Republicans really care about the livelihood of black Americans while we Democrats only exploit their hopes and dreams. But Jerry Bowyer doesn’t even care enough to tell his readers the truth. I guess this is par for the course for the National Review – deem their readers to be such stupid little children that deserve to be lied to.