Kerry's Dubious Economics

He says new jobs are paying $9,000 less than the old ones. That's not a fact.

Summary

In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention July 29 Kerry repeated a claim that the economy is creating jobs that pay $9,000 a year less than those they replace. He bases that on disputed analysis from a liberal think tank.

In fact, economists disagree about whether jobs are getting worse or better. As we said before, there's evidence both ways. Even some Democratic economists say the economic numbers are simply too rough and contradictory to allow any conclusion about the direction of change, let alone about how much less or more the new jobs pay.

Kerry also said "wages are falling" when in fact they are increasing. It's true wages haven't kept up with inflation for the past several months. But even after adjusting for inflation they're still higher than when Bush took office.

And when Kerry said the "middle class is shrinking," he was referring to what happened in the recession of 2001 and the initially slow recovery of 2002. But the economy has picked up considerably in the 19 months since, so what was true then may be untrue when phrased in present tense.

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