Exposing The "Job Truthers"

CORE MESSAGE

You only say the jobs data is cooked if you're trying to sabotage the economy.

Connect: We have so much more to do on jobs, but the drop in unemployment to 7.8% was a good surprise.

Define: Crying foul over good jobs data may score political points, but that's not just rooting against America -- it's putting our economy at risk.

Explain: The jobs report moves markets, so investors depend on knowing it's impossible for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to politically manipulate the data with all the safeguards in place.

Expose: No one who claims to be pro-business should ever cast doubt on the Bureau's completely non-political number-crunching, but that's what Mitt Romney's allies are doing just to win an election.

Bottom line: They admit they have zero evidence for their attacks. You only say the jobs data is cooked if you're rooting against America for political gain.

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ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

ATTACK: "This is not a real recovery. It's the worst recovery ever."
RESPONSE:

• Mitt Romney may be entitled to his 10% tax rate and Swiss bank account, but he's not entitled to his own facts. 
• The facts are that more Americans are going back to work faster in this recovery under President Obama than they did under Bush -- even though the recession Obama inherited was far worse.
• And this job growth comes despite the sabotage by Republicans in Congress who'd rather keep millions of Americans jobless just to put one man -- President Obama -- out of work.

ROMNEY: "There were fewer new jobs created this month than last month. We don't have to stay on the path we've been on."
RESPONSE:

• Look, the jobs numbers do go up and down because of statistical noise, but with unemployment dropping to 7.8% and five million back to work under Obama, we are steadily moving forward.
• We've still got so much more to do on jobs, but we've come too far to go back -- and if we switch now to Romney's plan, it won't just be Big Bird out of a job.
• Tax breaks for the wealthy and going easy on Wall Street led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Been there, done that. Why return to failed Bush policies?

ATTACK: "We now have fewer jobs than when we started under Obama and unemployment's been above 8% for almost four years."
RESPONSE:

• Actually, unemployment is now down to 7.8%, and our economy now has more jobs created than it lost during the recession that Obama inherited -- even if you start counting from his first month in office before his policies took effect, which Romney said is unfair.
• Under President Obama, the American people created jobs for 31 straight months -- putting five million back to work and sending the unemployment rate in the right direction.
• This election is indeed a choice -- a choice between moving forward to put Americans back to work or going back to the trickle down that led to the economic crisis to begin with. We already tried it their way, and it didn't work. We've come too far to go back.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• It is impossible for the Bureau of Labor Statistics  to politically manipulate the jobs data it gathers, compiles, and analyzes each month because --
  • This process is done according to the strictest accounting and security policies that have been in place for decades. The data is even put in a safe for bathroom breaks and even scraps of paper used by the Bureau's workers are locked up until the data embargo lifts.
  • The jobs data is compiled under an incredibly strict and tight deadline, leaving little time for manipulation.
  • The Bureau is as nonpartisan as they get. It also currently has zero political appointees and its staff includes people of all political leanings, meaning that if whistleblowers had anything suspicious to report, they would've already done so.
  • For all these reasons, economists on all sides of the political spectrum, investors, even Bush Administration officials have dismissed the conspiracy theories as ridiculous and even dangerous.
• The reason why the Bureau's report of the number of jobs created and the unemployment rate can seem like they're reflecting different sets of data is because they come from different sets of data: the Bureau uses two different surveys to calculate those estimates.
• The Bureau's employment data moves markets -- the monthly jobs numbers are among the most important factors that investors use to inform their decisions, especially considering the reports are released early in the month and give a quick snapshot of broader economic conditions.
• Under President Obama, the private sector has created five million jobs over the past 31 months, bringing the unemployment rate to a 44-month low.
• That jobs growth comes despite efforts by Republican politicians to lay off the Americans who keep our country running; if public sector employment had been allow to grow normally as in previous recoveries, we'd have nearly 2 more million jobs today.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.