Fox & Friends & Misleading Graphics

Has the unemployment rate doubled under President Obama? According to Fox News, yes. According to math, no.

Media Matters first pointed to above graphic, which was used this morning in a Fox & Friends segment attacking the president on his economic posturing.

The graphic claims the “real” unemployment rate has increased from 7.8% to 14.7% from 2009 until now. Here’s why that’s misleading: 7.8% was indeed the starting U-3 unemployment rate when Obama took office in January 2009. The U-3 rate is what you think of when people talk about the “unemployment rate” — how many people in the labor force are actively looking for work. And a few days ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the current U-3 unemployment rate — the number that Fox chooses to use for that first 2009 figure — is 8.1%, not 14.7%.

14.7% is the current U-6 unemployment rate. In addition to factoring in those U-3ers who are out of work and actively looking for a job, U-6 unemployment counts part-time workers looking for more hours and those too discouraged to continue seeking work.

Conservatives like to call U-6 the “real” unemployment rate, and I think there’s a fair point to be made that the U-6 rate is a better unemployment barometer than U-3. However, juxtaposing 2009’s U-3 rate with today’s U-6 rate is horribly disingenuous, making it look like the unemployment rate has doubled under Obama when it has not.

You can call U-6 the “real” unemployment rate all day long (and Fox News certainly does), but then you don’t get to use the U-3 rate from 2009 just because it makes a starker graphic. Tellingly, the U-6 rate in January 2009 was 14.2%  — a mere 0.5 lower than it is today.

After the graphic flashed, Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham beamed: “Other than Fox News, where are you really seeing those statistics?” Yup.

UPDATE: On this morning’s Fox & Friends, hosts Brian Kilmeade and Gretchen Carlson made the correction:

KILMEADE: Hey, I want to clarify a graphic we used yesterday. We were comparing the real unemployment rate to when President Obama took office. The real rate includes those working part-time because of economic reasons.

CARLSON: So the real unemployment rate right now, 14.7%. The percentage when the president took office should have read 14.2%, not 7.8%

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