Over the last few months the unemployment rate has declined significantly. This decrease has been accompanied by an increase in President Obama's approval rating. The unemployment rate is now down to 8.3% after being over 9.0% for most of last year. President Obama’s approval rating is now over 50% in many polls.
As Fox News has covered this trend, they have begun to question the unemployment rate numbers like never before. When the unemployment rate was increasing under President Obama’s first year in office, these numbers were simply accepted fact for the “fair and balanced” network. Now nearly every mention of the decreasing is accompanied by phrases that attempt to discredit the very numbers they are reporting. Evidence of this phenomenon can be seen in the video here. A summary appears below.
As seen in the video, Brian Kilmeade begins the segment by asking, “What does the good economic news, if you believe these numbers, mean for President Obama?” Kilmeade immediately suggests to viewers that there may be a reason to doubt the positive economic numbers, though he never justifies that assertion.
Later, Kilmeade’s co-host Gretchen Carlson goes even further, suggesting that the economic numbers may actually be “fabricated” by the Obama administration. Carlson provides no source for her claim, instead stating that “some people say” that the numbers may be fabricated.
At the end of the segment, a viewer is left with the impression that there really are no economic numbers that can be relied upon, even though Fox News continually has cited the Labor Department’s unemployment numbers without question for the past two years.
The Fox News segment is part of a larger trend by conservative media over the last month after the very positive January jobs report released by the Labor Department. Many conservatives have essentially claimed that the Labor Department is “cooking” the numbers to make things look better for President Oabma ahead of the election.
Adjustments are made to the unemployment rate according to a number of factors, but these adjustments are well-documented and applied using very scientific statistical models. These adjustments have been made under both Democratic and Republican presidents, including President Reagan. These adjustments create a more accurate picture of the labor market in America.
A man or woman who quits work, voluntarily, to stay at home with the children should not be counted as an “unemployed” person looking for work, and so the Labor Department makes adjustments to reflect this reality. Employers tend to hire more workers in certain seasons, such as summer, and so the Labor Department makes appropriate adjustments so that the unemployment does not fluctuate drastically according to the seasons.
But of course understanding these adjustments is complicated. It is much easier to throw doubt into the minds of viewers and sell them a conspiracy theory involving cooked numbers and re-election. Studies show that Fox News viewers believe what they are being told, which is perhaps why studies also show Fox News’ viewers to be consistently misinformed on many of the key issues of our time.
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