Larry Bartels has a very interesting article at YouGov that documents how voter ignorance seems to fall in line with the political positions one takes. Republicans and Democrats alike tend to believe that the facts fit a pattern that is most convenient to their political identification, even when reality is entirely the opposite.
For instance, when asked whether unemployment had increased or decreased a lot or a little:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of this variation in beliefs is attributable to partisan biases. More than 60% of Republicans said that unemployment has increased a lot, while almost as many Democrats said that it has decreased. In both cases, their beliefs were conveniently consistent with their party loyalties.
However, even among the minority of survey respondents with no partisan axe to grind—so-called “pure” independents—there was substantial variation in beliefs, with 45% saying that unemployment has increased, 24% saying that it has decreased, and 31% saying that it has stayed the same. And those differing beliefs are politically consequential: 57% of the second group, but only 20% of the first group, said they approved of Obama’s performance as president.
The reality: Unemployment was 7.9% in January, 2009 and it is now 8.3%. It was also 8.3% in February, 2009, so one could reasonably believe that unemployment has either gone up a little or that there had been no change; any other belief is contrary to the facts.
On the question of whether taxes on the middle class had gone up or down a lot or a little or had stayed the same:
Here, too, people’s beliefs differ greatly, with more than 40% saying that taxes have increased, about 20% saying that they have decreased, and almost 40% saying that the middle-class tax burden has remained unchanged. Again, the disagreement is largely along partisan lines, with more than 70% of Republicans but less than 20% of Democrats saying that the tax burden has increased.
The correct answer to this question is that the tax burden on middle-class Americans has decreased during Obama’s presidency. More than one-third of the 2009 stimulus bill consisted of tax cuts, including expanded tax credits for workers, people with children, college students, homebuyers, and the unemployed. In 2010, Obama proposed and Congress accepted a substantial temporary reduction in the payroll tax, which was recently extended through 2012. Meanwhile, the Bush-era income tax cuts were also extended through 2012. While one might quibble about whether all of this amounts to decreasing the tax burden on middle-class Americans by “a little” or “a lot,” only 20% of the public gave either of those answers.
As with perceptions of unemployment, perceptions of how the tax burden has changed during Obama’s years in office have significant political ramifications. Among “pure” independents (those who do not lean toward either party), Obama’s job approval rating was 52% among those who recognized that the tax burden had decreased, but only 35% among those who thought it was unchanged—and only 17% among those who (wrongly) thought it had increased.
This is why political lies are effective. When conservatives rail about Obama raising taxes, even though he hasn’t, those of us who pay close attention to politics know they’re lying — but most voters don’t. Most voters will believe whatever is most convenient for their political beliefs.
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laurentweppe
March 19, 2012 at 12:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I believed that US unemployment had gone up from 2009 to 2011 and then went down. I looked it up and would you believe it, my other belief is actually concordant with the facts.
Artor
March 19, 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I believe that unemployment statistics don’t tell the whole story. I am self-employed, so I don’t qualify for unemployment if my work runs out, which it has, alot over the past year. I have work now, but in February, I had about 10 billable hours all month. I am not alone; there are tens of thousands, if not millions in the same boat.
Then there are those who have been unemployed so long they’re kicked off the rolls. They’re still unemployed, but nobody’s counting them, and there’s those who hear all the bickering about cutting benefits and assume there’s no point in registering as unemployed.
I believe the statistic has gone down, but I know for a fact that there’s a whole lot more unemployed than the official numbers reflect.
gesres
March 19, 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hmmm, no. According to the BLS:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
eric
March 19, 2012 at 1:22 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Huh. Before reading this, I likely would’ve said that unemployment has decreased in the last several years, albeit marginally. I would’ve disapproved of Obama’s presidency despite my perceived decrease in unemployment, and I would’ve said that taxes on the middle class have remained unchanged. For the record, I’m independent
Modusoperandi
March 19, 2012 at 1:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Weird. I was sure that after the Tea Party victory in 2010, when the GOP could finally focus “laser-like” on jobs instead of focusing laser-like on watering down even the mildest reform, preventing the Democrats from enacting formerly-GOP legislation and keeping government from getting between you and your doctor (exempt: ladyparts), that the unemployment rate fell promptly to zero. I have to believe it didn’t because Obama cancelled the XL pipeline or something.
And state by state where the same kind of victory happened (even when that victory was GOP over fractionally more moderate GOP), the same thing happened. Over and over again.
I can only conclude that the GOP’s focus is on ladyparts because that’s where the jobs are hiding.
pinkboi
March 19, 2012 at 2:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
While I think people ought to really pay attention I also understand that people have better things to do than research this stuff and vote accordingly, especially when one vote doesn’t, in fact, make a difference. And the more complex the regulatory apparatus, the greater the distance between what people need to know to vote intelligently and the reality.
ryanlangford
March 19, 2012 at 2:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Both of these examples are deceptive IMO. Very few people are going to remember where in the tsunami of unemployment Obama officially took office, I know I didn’t remember it. When the country was losing 750K jobs PER MONTH, it is quite easy to forget which month it was, which throws off the numbers significantly.
As for the taxes, it did not specify federal or state taxes, which is quite important. Even if it did specify, it still wouldn’t matter, because many people do not differentiate between them.
I don’t think this has much of anything to do with where they get their information, this has more to do with political bias coupled with lack of interest in the details. In the exact same way that 40% of Republicans believe Obama is the antichrist, that isn’t based on a careful study of Obama’s actions, that is just partisan demonizing.
Who Knows?
March 19, 2012 at 2:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Didn’t unemployment get up over 9% at one point?
I was thinking we went through some pretty rough times and have only recently slightly improved.
Jordan Genso
March 19, 2012 at 2:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So unemployment was 8.3% in Feb 2009, when the stimulus was passed. It then continued going up for some time, while increasing at a decreasing rate, and then came back down.
When did the administration make that famous prediction that if the stimulus didn’t pass, unemployment would go above 8%? From what I googled, it looks like January 9th, 2009. So within two months of making that statement, the unemployment rate is already above 8%, before the stimulus had any chance of beginning.
Yet how many Tea Party Republicans are going to use that 1/9/09 statement against the President this election season?
baal
March 19, 2012 at 2:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/Blog_Road_Recovery.jpg
Apologies on using motherjones but it came up early in the results list.
I knew the unemployment number has been essentially flat but that is a damn sight better than losing 750K a month.
dogmeat
March 19, 2012 at 4:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually Ed, you’re a bit off on this one. When Obama took office, unemployment was @ 7.8%, it hit a high of 10.1% in October ’09, dropped to the mid 9% range, and sat there for much of ’10-11, and has been slowly going down over the last six months to the 8.3% we’re sitting at now. While the party affiliation effect is accurate, the Democrats/Democrat leaning independents are closer to the truth.
Artor,
You are experiencing what is generally referee to as “underemployment.”. That rating is sitting in the low teens in percentage from a high in the low 18% range. For reference, using the same calculation for the Great Depression era, underemployment has been estimated at roughly 37%.
A number of indicators suggest that the economy is recovering. Jobs created numbers are up while first time unemployment claims have been down for (I believe) seven of the last eight weeks. It is a slow recovery, but given that the stimulus plan was about a third the size it should have been, and no new significant efforts have been made since the Republicans took the House in Jan ’11, that isn’t surprising. Interestingly enough, the rising gas prices are another indicator that the economy is recovering. :o/
Michael Heath
March 19, 2012 at 8:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Here’s a graph showing U3 since Jan-2009: http://goo.gl/84HuJ
See the table below the graph for the monthly results.
Now here’s a far more informative graph showing how this job market looks compared to previous periods with job losses and recoveries: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/03/employment-summary-and-discussion.html
Click on the first graph and study it, I guarantee you its worth studying long enough that you understand job crashes and recoveries in this crash and previous business down cycles / recessions.
I’ve been watching this graph since it was published a handful of years ago. What you learn is that our labor market has been deteriorating for decades now. It’s fundamentally weaker, where this weakness results in ever-increasing suffering in subsequent business down-cycles due to ever-greater crashes and ever-longer recoveries.
This is the graph Republicans don’t want people to understand; but Democrats are culpable as well. The fact is, in a NAFTA world with the economic development of Eastern Europe and Asia, the Clinton Administration made a strategic error favoring deficit reduction over investments to transform the U.S. labor market. This failure by President Clinton is one us moderates must concede we not only enabled, but were the key linchpin in leading. As a moderate it was devastating learning how wrong I was on this topic, along with providing political support to Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers given their alliance with Congressional Republicans to deregulate investment banks. It’s forced me to shift many of economic positions leftward.
Now the reason we’re not seeing a steep decline in U3 in spite of a solid trend in job growth is the increase of people entering the job market, mostly due to population growth and people who left the labor market who are now looking (including those who were self-employed but not seek employment).