Mark Twain said: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics."
To me, the most interesting thing about statistics is that two people can look at the same figures and come to radically different conclusions.
From an article by Sam Stein for the Huffington Post about the CBS’ "60 Minutes" interview with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio):
Reached for comment, Boehner's office referred The Huffington Post to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which has projected that an estimated 500,000 fewer people would be in the workforce if the current wage of $7.25 per hour rose to $10.10.
“Obviously, a higher minimum wage doesn’t completely eliminate every job for every janitor or bulldozer driver in America –- but it does mean there are fewer jobs and fewer opportunities,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel. “Boehner, as a former small businessman, knows from experience what the Congressional Budget Office confirmed last year: the president’s minimum wage proposal would destroy hundreds of thousands of American jobs.”
From the CBO report referred to:
Effects of the $10.10 Option on Employment and Income
"Once fully implemented in the second half of 2016, the $10.10 option would reduce total employment by about 500,000 workers, or 0.3 percent..... As with any such estimates, however, the actual losses could be smaller or larger; in CBO’s assessment, there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers."
So the CBO admits it doesn’t really KNOW what will happen: “there is about a two-thirds chance that the effect would be in the range between a very slight reduction in employment and a reduction in employment of 1.0 million workers.” How vague and wishy-washy can you get?
And Speaker Boehner’s office seems to be assuming that 500,000 jobs will DISAPPEAR FOREVER. Well, with the TPP looming, that may be true, but if those jobs will be going overseas anyway, why not raise “Real Income by $5 billion for families whose income will be below the poverty threshold under current law” and move an estimated 900,000 people above the poverty threshold, as projected by the CBO?
The CBO also thinks that families who are currently ABOVE the poverty line will have more income, EXCEPT “for families whose income would otherwise have been six times the poverty threshold or more, LOWERING their average family income by 0.4 percent.”
In other words, the people most likely to vote Republican.