De-mythifying the Heritage Foundation's 10 Jobs Myths
Written by Hal Pawluk
Published April 05, 2004

The Heritage Foundation has posted a series of "myths" to refute the idea that sending American jobs off-shore is harmful to our economy.

  • Many "facts" used in rebuttal are red herrings rather than relevant responses.
  • Some of their myths are "straw men," arguments couched in terms that allow the Foundation folks to defeat them more easily (although they don't do well at that).
  • Some are apparently pulled out of thin air, as they do not even resemble the views of opponents to off-shoring.
  • And they use irrelevant and misleading statistics going back as far as 15 years, making the data far from representative of the real situation during the current job off-shoring boom.

Let's look at the details (printable version on my site):

 

# Heritage Myth #1: America is losing jobs.
Fact: More Americans are employed than ever before.

The Heritage "fact" is not a rebuttal and is in fact the first red herring. Those are two unrelated statements, along the lines of: "Myth: Global warming is increasing. Fact: My heating bill is higher than ever this winter."

Both can be true, because there's no connection.

There are indeed more workers in the economy than ever before, but more are unemployed, more can find only temporary work, more have taken jobs at lower wages, and millions more have quit looking for work.

# Heritage Myth #2: The low unemployment rate excludes many discouraged workers.
Fact: Unemployment is dropping, despite a surging labor force.

Their "fact" is not a rebuttal, it's another red herring - these are two independent statements.

Then, calling a fact a myth, as they do here, doesn't change reality: the fact is that the number of workers not looking for work, many because they have given up on being able to find jobs, has risen by more than 5 million during this administration. They are excluded from the unemployment rate.

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De-mythifying the Heritage Foundation's 10 Jobs Myths
Published: April 05, 2004
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Section: Politics
Writer: Hal Pawluk
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Comments

#1 — April 5, 2004 @ 12:35PM — Mark Saleski [URL]

the heritage list is definitely a case of statistics smoodging and bad logic.

another symptom of the sad state of our political discourse.

#2 — April 5, 2004 @ 12:45PM — bhw [URL]

Does anyone know if someone whose unemployment benefits have run out, but who is still looking for work, is counted in the unemployment rate?

Generally speaking, who is and isn't counted as unemployed for this computation?

#3 — April 5, 2004 @ 12:48PM — Mac Diva [URL]

Uh, oh. This entry has been researched and contains empirical information, not some clueless clown's personal opinion. Don't be surprised if you are accused of "making up facts," Hal-:).

I am unclear on why the Heritage Foundation would come up with these myths. Is it their position that outsourcing is good because whatever American business does is good? Or, do they believe outsourcing is good in and of itself?

#4 — April 5, 2004 @ 14:22PM — The Dude

Unemployment doesn't matter to the Dude here. I live in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had promised every citizen a fantastic job. So my future is looking bright! Oh, I hope he didn't mean a fantastic hand-job.

#5 — April 5, 2004 @ 15:33PM — Hal Pawluk [URL]

"Does anyone know if someone whose unemployment benefits have run out, but who is still looking for work, is counted in the unemployment rate"

There's really no way of knowing.

The unemployment numbers are derived from a sample of 60,000 households. If the people whose benefits ran out aren't in any of those households, they have no effect on the unemployment numbers one way or the other.

For a person to count as "unemployed" they have to be out of work, and available and looking for work (and in one of the surveyed households). Some of those whose benefits ran out will look for work, some won't.

The unemployment stat is derived as part of the government's monthly Current Population Survey, so it is not all that accurate.

The employment part of this survey, for instance, indicates that gobs of jobs have been created in the last few years. The equivalent "Establishment" survey tells us something closer to the truth. The difference is because while the "Population" survey covers a sample of about 70,000 workers then makes projections, the "Establishment" survey covers businesses with 40,000,000 employees and produces much more accurate projections.

It's not a science.

#6 — April 5, 2004 @ 16:03PM — Hal Pawluk [URL]

"I am unclear on why the Heritage Foundation would come up with these myths."

To protect George W. Bush, and their reputation (smirk, smirk).

They brag about Bush's economic and foreign policies being "from the Heritage Foundation's playbook" so everything that's happening has to be for the best.

The deeper reason is big business and rich, direct investors in the stock market. This includes a lot of very rich politicians (most of the 535 on the Hill) and members of the think tanks and political organizations we keep hearing from.

The neocons claim they came up with the concept of "the investor class" (or at least for pushing it to the fore, link not handy at the moment but available if subpoenaed :-). The claim is that around 60% of the US population is in this class, and that things like tax cuts for the rich are "good for the investor class" (my House Rep David Dreier told me exactly that).

What they don't tell you is that while 60% may be peripherally involved in the stock market through IRAs and mutual funds, the benefits largely go to direct investors in the stock market. That's only about 20% of the population, a number that has hardly changed over the last 50 years, when it was about 18%.

It's a con. (I'll probably blog something more on this at some point.)

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