Kerry's Cherry-Picking Of Statistics To Make Bush Look Bad Is The Pits.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(VIEWPOINT)

Byline: ALAN REYNOLDS

Sen. Kerry's last-minute campaign pitch claims that "over the last four years . . . wages of the average family have fallen $1,500." Yet that figure does not refer to wages, or to four years, or to families, or to any average. Four serious errors in one sentence.

The source of Kerry's $1,500 was a pre-election paper from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Although it was called "Less Cash in their Pockets," the $1,500 figure ignores the Bush tax cuts, which put a larger sum in family pockets.

The EPI report says, "Pretax incomes fell for three years in a row, leaving the typical household with $1,535 less income than in 2000, a drop of 3.4%." The figure refers to pretax income and to three years rather than four. And the Kerry campaign's misnamed "average family" refers to households (including singles) in the middle fifth of the income distribution, as though excluding the other 80% could be called typical.

Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson explained why this matters:

"The median household was once imagined as a family of Mom, Dad and two kids. But "typical' no longer exists. There are more singles, childless couples and retirees. Smaller households tend to have lower incomes. They drag down the overall median. So do more poor immigrant households."

Misrepresenting The Facts