So there has been a lot of chuckling over Scott Walker’s suggestion that his office is going to produce its own statistics.
This is important to me because it highlights a couple of things.
First off what does it mean to “create 250K jobs.” I am going to tell you that it means that the latest revision to the BLS payroll series shows that your state has 250K more jobs than it did when you made the announcement and that there simply is no reality beyond that.
I know that this weirds a lot of people out and if that is too much to handle then perhaps its better to think in terms of how we define “jobs” We could say there is a BLS definition of jobs, a Unemployment Insurance definition of “jobs”, a household survey definition of “jobs” and then reality.
Since we can’t measure reality directly we have to agree to be talking about one of these other measures or we are going to wind up just talking past each other.
However you can settle it in your mind, the point is that we need to agree on definitions and standards for measurement up front or we are going to be in for a world of confusion.
Second, I am beginning to think I must be wrong on this – given how different my intuition is from everyone else’s and the paucity of direct evidence that I have – however, my baseline assumption has always been that the undecided voter bases his or her opinion of the economy on what he or she experiences directly or through friends and family.
Are their really lots of voters who would be swayed by statistics? Maybe there are. Or perhaps, its about controlling the narrative. Lots of bad statistics give journalists a license to talk trash about you and this contributes to a general since of “failure” hanging around your administration?
I don’t know, but I am puzzled at the extent to which even a working administration would be focused on pure numbers rather than speaking to the lived experience of voters.
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Friday ~ May 18th, 2012 at 9:18 am
Becky Hargrove
Perhaps the fact that Scott Walker’s office can even do such a silly thing, speaks to the problem of what a job even is or could be. I have to now reconsider some books written in the late 90s which spoke of our times as when people would no longer identify by occpation but the things that took precedence in their lives. The real issue for us is whether we are going to end up with definitions of jobless people as a drag on the rest of society, or capable of building a better wealth based future on more human terms.
Friday ~ May 18th, 2012 at 9:29 am
michelle
Is a job created when it’s taken from a union member and given to a prisoner? I wonder.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Friday ~ May 18th, 2012 at 9:52 am
Lord
If the lived experience is worse, talking numbers is creative diversion.
Friday ~ May 18th, 2012 at 10:43 am
curtd59
It’s also impossible to craft a message that displays empathy with competing perceptions of reality.
But I agree with your sentiment.
Friday ~ May 18th, 2012 at 10:41 am
curtd59
1) Data Competition is a valuable thing. Look at the disutility and deception created by something as spurious as “household income”.
2) The public has little trust in numbers, but less trust in allegory.
3) The experience must address a small segment of the population and when a politician speaks to them he alienates others.
So data competition is a good thing, despite being an annoying thing.
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