Brendan Nyhan musters an impressive series of graphs and charts to expose the deceptions behind today's Brooks column. Fir instance, take Brooks' claim that "according to the Congressional Budget Office, earnings for the poorest fifth of Americans are also on the increase." Here's what their earnings look like, according to the very CBO report Brooks is citting:
If your income had been falling or stagnating for the last seven years, would you say your income was increasing?
But this is Brooks' main dodge in the article: He repeatedly factors in gains created during the final years of the 90s, averages them out with the losses during the Bush years, and uses the resultant positive number as proof that the economy is doing well. The actual conclusion this data suggests is that the economy was doing well and has been in decline for most of the last decade -- but that doesn't fit the story Brooks is trying to tell, which is that all those worried about the economy and intent on restoring (and possibly even enhancing) the progressivity of the Clinton years are mendacious alarmists. So again, someone explain to me how to read this in good faith.
