Political Diary: Lies, Damned Lies and (Jobs) Statistics – WSJ

Jobs numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always capture the entire truth. Just ask Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who was ridiculed by Democrats last week for suggesting that the gnomes at the Bureau of Labor Statistics were rigging state unemployment data.

“It’s ironic that in a year in which Republican governors are leading some of the states that are making the most progress, that they almost, without exception, are classified as having a bump in their unemployment rates,” Mr. Deal groused. “Whereas states that are under Democrat governors’ control, they are all showing that their unemployment rate has dropped. And I don’t know how you account for that. Maybe there is some influence here that we don’t know about.”

The point here is that unemployment numbers can be misleading, which is why Republicans like Mr. Deal need to be able to cite significant policy accomplishments and present a broader governing agenda.

via Political Diary: Lies, Damned Lies and (Jobs) Statistics – WSJ.