This botched fact-check accused Bernie Sanders of being 'misleading' for when he was 100 percent cor

[Judi Lynn]

This botched fact-check accused Bernie Sanders of being ‘misleading’ for when he was 100 percent correct
written by Cody Fenwick June 27, 2019

Ahead of the Democrats’ first 2020 primary debate on Wednesday, the Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler published a piece listing claims from many of the prominent candidates. And on many counts, it showed a bizarre tendency to apply undue criticism to the Democrats.

While President Donald Trump has provided an unending amount of work for fact-checkers, and fact-checking has been endlessly valuable under his presidency, the practice is not without its flaws. Kessler, in particular, has previously been called out for applying bizarrely specific standards to statements and sometimes calling obviously true statements “misleading” if he doesn’t like what they imply.

One extreme example of this habit was shown in his fact check of a claim by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT):

“Millions of Americans are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive.”

— Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that nearly 8 million people hold more than one job. But most of those extra jobs are part time, not full time. And the “millions” of people amount to just 5 percent of Americans with jobs. So that means 95 percent of workers are not working two or three jobs “just to survive,” making this a misleading statement.

It’s not clear at all how this is “misleading.”

More:
https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/this-botched-fact-check-accused-bernie-sanders-of-being-misleading-for-when-he-was-100-percent-correct/

[Recursion]

1. Working multiple jobs is less common than it was 20 years ago (nt)

[rpannier]

2. Forbes seems to disagree with that

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2018/07/22/more-people-probably-work-multiple-jobs-than-the-government-realizes/#776e2d002a21

[Recursion]

4. That wouldn't impact the drop

If they're undercounting now, they were undercounting in the past too. The point remains it's significantly less common today than it used to be: we've been moving in the right direction there.

[progree]

5. That's not Forbes' opinion but the contributor's

Right next to the word "contributor" after the author's name (Erik Sherman) is a little info icon. When one clicks on that, it says "Opinions expressed by Forbes contributors are their own".

It's the equivalent of an "op-ed" in say the New York Times and Washington Post where they try to have a variety of opinions to look "balanced" and, well, just to present a variety of opinions.

But yes, those are good arguments about why 5% is likely an undercount of those working 2 or more jobs.

And it presents a graph from BLS's twitter feed showing a drop from the mid 1990's, according to the BLS, which indicates it's less common than in the mid-1990's, although of course the reasons why it might be an undercount still apply, and there's no particular reason given why the undercount problems might have been worse now than then. Or better. So who knows.

Edited to add

The BLS data series is at

Multiple Jobholders as a Percent of Employed, age 16+, seasonally adjusted, LNS12026620 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026620

[SidDithers]

9. That's not Forbes...

It’s a blog hosted at Forbes. Literally anyone could post at Forbes.com/sites.

It’s written by this guy:

Contributor
Erik Sherman
I'm a freelance journalist, author, and writer whose work has appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Technology Review, Chief Executive, and The Fiscal Times. Also, I write regularly for Inc.com. I'm the author or co-author of ten non-fiction books and am also a playwright. My websites are www.eriksherman.com and www.erikshermanphoto.com. You can find me on Twitter at @eriksherman

Sid

[Roy Rolling]

3. Same Here

The "less common than 20 years ago" comment is a challenge to the credibility of the article. Where can we find evidence of this?

[Recursion]

6. This is what we have a BLS for

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/4-point-9-percent-of-workers-held-more-than-one-job-at-the-same-time-in-2017.htm

It was 6.2 percent of workers in the mid-90s, and it's 4.9 percent of workers now.

[progree]

7. I found the BLS data series, LNS12026620

Multiple Jobholders as a Percent of Employed, age 16+, seasonally adjusted, LNS12026620 https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12026620

for anyone who wants to see the monthly numbers as well as the graphs, all the way up to the latest.

[KPN]

8. And your point is what? That the 8 million

or so who work multiple jobs to provide for basic needs is not a meaningful problem?
That it IS misleading?

[Recursion]

10. That we've been moving in the right direction, not the wrong one

We've been building an economy that requires fewer people to work multiple jobs, which means we probably shouldn't change course if that's what we care about.

[KPN]

11. Shouldn't change course? Sounds like you are fairly conservative on economic issues compared to

me at least. I don't see a tick down in numbers working multiple jobs as a meaningful improvement for the 90% as a whole. While that particular metric may have improved marginally, every other one has gone and some (like retirement benefits/savings) continue to go the other way to a rather vast degree over the past 40 years. We may have placed a finger in the hole, but that doesn't represent long term economic security for tens of millions of Americans. Sanders' lament about 8 million working multiple jobs is symbolic of the larger problem -- it isn't THE problem. I'm sure Elizabeth Warren would agree -- who, by the way, is the candidate I am leaning toward.

[Recursion]

12. Well, no, certainly not "every" metric is worse

There are a lot of metrics by which things are better than they have ever been. American workers make more money (after adjustment for inflation) than they have at any point in the past. US manufacturing output is higher than it is has ever been. etc. I know we all love to scream about how horrible the economy is (even to the point of costing ourselves the 2016 election -- seriously, stupid idea on our part), but the fact is this is actually one of the better economic situations in US history.

[KayF]

13. why look at 20 years?

progressives like Bernie and Warren trace our economic situation to the late 70's or to the Reagan era. The economy was supposedly great 20 years ago but just like now there were a lot of real problems behind the numbers, and as I recall, the fact that a lot of people had to hold multiple jobs was an issue back then as well.

And regardless of the trend, the fact check in the OP is ridiculous.