Right-Wing Media Think Unemployed Americans Spend Too Little Time Working
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on September 11th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Right-Wing Media Think Unemployed Americans Spend Too Little Time Working
Conservative media are claiming that unemployed Americans are “lazy” because they supposedly spend too much time “shopping” and not enough time working or looking for work. But the data they cite includes the activities of stay-at-home parents, students, people with disabilities, and retirees who are “not employed.”
On September 8, fringe conservative website CNS News published an article claiming “an unemployed American is more likely to be shopping … than to be looking for a new job. ” The article ostensibly cited data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), an annual survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). CNS claimed that “only 18.9 percent of Americans who were unemployed” engaged in job searches or job interviews on “an average day.” Meanwhile, according to CNS, 22.5 percent of the “unemployed” engaged in shopping “for items other than groceries” on “an average day.”
Unfortunately, CNS did not link to its internal data or provide methodology for its reporting, leaving readers to take the website’s claims at face value.
Digging into the technical notes of the ATUS reveals that the BLS does not categorize individuals as “unemployed,” but rather as “not employed.” This distinction is important, as it includes individuals who fit the classification of being unemployed — not working but actively looking for work — as well as individuals who are “not in the labor force” for other reasons, including retirement, educational pursuit, and disability. So-called “discouraged workers,” the small percentage of the population who involuntarily leave the labor force due to a lack of opportunity, would also count as “not employed” by ATUS classification.
CNS’ insinuation that the so-called “unemployed” spend too much time engaged in non-work activities like “shopping” is based on a fatally skewed statistical error. But that fact has not stopped right-wing media outlets from using CNS’ assumptions to fuel their campaign against the unemployed.