Lying with statistics

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One of the books I hang onto is How to Lie with Statistics by Huff and Geis (1983). One of the easiest ways to deceptively use statistics is to manipulate what you are counting. When inflation was getting out of hand under Reagan, housing costs were changed in the inflation formula. In Greenspan's meeting with Congress he too recommended changing the inflation calculations (primarily as a way of reducing the cost of living increases for Social Security benefits). Don't like the unemployment figures? Reduce them by half by leaving out "discouraged workers" and the underemployed. Then this morning, I heard that GW is pushing for a reclassification of some service sector jobs to manufacturing. As you well know, many of the almost 3 million jobs lost under Bush have been from manufacturing. The type of jobs he wants to reclassify? Working at MacDonald's. Yep, that is one sure way to improve the stats.

Posted by rowan at March 1, 2004 09:43 AM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |