I was watching the morning news and they showed the following statistics to the question, "Is your family income higher today than it was 6 years ago?" The purpose of the question was to see what people felt about the economy and the economic policies of Obama. Here is what the data showed:
* 32% worse than before
* 45% better than before
* 23% about the same
The conclusion by the talking heads on TV was that the economy was not that bad. Was that the right conclusion? I don't think so and here is why.
First, we need to adjust the data so that the data to account for the "fact" that these families are 6 years older. Think about this. If the economy was exactly the same and you had been working in your profession for 6 years, wouldn't you expect that your earnings would have grown? Even if your earnings had increased, that does not mean your buying power hand had gone up at the same pace. This is because there has been some inflation during the past 6 years. What if one of those interviewed was 24 years old and thus only 18 years old 6 years ago. 6 years ago, this person may have been in high school and did not have a job. Isn't it clear that they would have answered that they earn more now than they did 6 years ago?
On of the big problems with questions like the above is that the economy is not static and those workers with in the economy are also not static. They are getting older each year while they should also be progressing up the economic ladder. They are learning new or more skills and the value added should be going up. Isn't it clear that people 50 years old normally make more money than people 25 years old? Look at you school teacher just out of college compared to one that is 50 years old. It is a common error of most people to forget about "normalizing" the data so that it is comparable before they jump to a conclusion.
My real concern is that people who can not come to the correct decision have the right to vote. I think that is one of the reasons that we elected such an incompetent person as Obama for our President.
