CNSNews.com performs its usual misleading job on the latest unemployment numbers, with Susan Jones’ lead story on April’s unemployment once again leading with the labor force participation rate. She again fails to mention the relevant fact that the labor force number — since it includes students and retirees who aren’t looking for jobs — is a unreliable number for discussing unemployment.
Jones also writes a sidebar noting the high unemployment rate for African-Americans without mentioning that it has always been much higher for African-Americans compared with whites. But, again, Jones’ numbers for African-Americans and Hispanics are framed in the misleading and meaningless labor participation rate numbers.
This time around, CNS editor in chief Terry Jeffrey contributes an additional politically motivated cherry-picking of numbers with an article on how “The United States has lost approximately 191,000 jobs in the mining industry since September 2014.”
The implication, of course — though Jeffrey carefully avoids saying it outright — is that President Obama’s environmental policies are solely to blame for this. In fact, the major driver for the current reduction in mining jobs is a slump and decreased prices in the overall energy sector.Even the conservative Washington Examiner admits that “the precipitous drop in oil prices” has driven the current loss in mining jobs.
And Jeffrey also glosses over the fact that the chart accompanying his article shows that mining industry jobs were fewer during most years of the last Republican presidency — George W. Bush — than currently under Obama.