September 28, 2013

CHART: Minimum Wage vs. Unemployment Rate, 1948 – 2012

Most Americans believe the minimum wage should be increased. It would make good economic sense, and it would help pull people out of poverty. But many Republicans in Washington say this is a non-starter because raising the minimum wage would be a job killer. But how do we know this is true? Should we just take their word for it? And come to think of it, calling something a job killer seems to be the boilerplate Republican response to just about anything these days, including Obamacare and raising taxes. Republicans aren’t lying to us, are they?

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September 27, 2013

Two Charts Climate Change Deniers Don’t Believe

There’s a lot of hot air (okay, that was too predictable) from climate change deniers in the run up to today’s UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. Some of these deniers are actually saying global warming has stopped or in some cases reversed. Remember, we aren’t talking about skeptics. These people are out-and-out denialists. They are unconcerned with facts and evidence. The only thing that matters in their narrow worldview is their “belief” that climate change is not real or not man-made.

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June 20, 2013

CHART: The Conservative ‘Big Government’ Lie – U.S. Residents per Public Sector Worker

Conservatives loathe “big government.” I mean, they hate it with a passion. But their antipathy for big government is manufactured from a false pretense that larger government leads to smaller individual liberty. It’s hard to believe something as complex as the United States government, in a country with a population over 300 million, could be boiled down to a zero sum game of government vs. liberty, but that’s conservative logic for ya.

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June 17, 2013

SNAP: Food Assistance: These Simple Charts Could Prove You’re An Ass

Many conservatives have no problem showing their disdain for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), previously known as “food stamps.” In December 2011, then Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum asked, “If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?” This is the kind of unthinking “wisdom” that emanates from the conservative bubble.

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June 14, 2013

CHART: Fear Of Terrorism Makes People Irrational – Terrorism Fatalities vs. Firearm Homicides

Due to Homeland Security - photo by Thomas HawkAmerica is a country that prides itself on bravery and strength, but we have an irrational fear of terrorism in the post-9/11 years. You are more likely to die in a car accident, a fall, or even drown, than die in a terrorist incident. In some cases, many thousands of times more likely. But while we made no rash or illogical decisions regarding automobile deaths, we have done exactly that in response to terrorism. In addition to car accidents, falls and drownings, you are also more likely to be murdered by firearm than murdered by terrorist attack. And while car accidents, falls and drownings are accidents, murder by gun is no accident, and that makes it a good statistic to compare to terrorism.

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May 30, 2013

Chart: Obama vs. Bush: Private Sector Job Growth (First 52 Months)

There is a lot of Republican right-wing misinformation about the state of the economy and private sector job growth. And breathtaking in their ineptitude are conservatives who believe President Obama is presiding over a net private sector job loss economy. This simply is untrue. I don’t say this because it’s my opinion, I say it because the data gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows net private sector job growth since January 2009 of almost 2.6 million jobs. It’s not something that can be disputed because we have actual data and record keeping. It’s information that anybody can research, but it requires a lot less conjecture and a little more work, which might produce a result that would not comport to right-wing narratives.

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