Lies, Damed Lies and Statistics

Posted by Roger Taylor on

The devil is in the details! Many right-wing lawmakers are using misleading numbers to try to downplay the effectiveness of the stimulus package in creating and saving jobs. This week, many are complaining that each job created by the stimulus cost $246,000. The Associated Press fact-checked the claim and discovered the law makers are using"grade school arithmetic” in their mis-calculations, and “the math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading.” (Example: The stimulus, for example, adds up the amount of money it would cost to construct an entire building but, thus far, only the architects and the engineers have been officially hired and counted — not the hundreds of contractors and laborers who will work on the project down the line.)

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