Wednesday, September 14, 2011

McCrory's fuzzy math


We're as concerned about North Carolina's high unemployment rate as Pat McCrory, the not-so-secret Republican candidate for governor. But McCrory misses the mark with an email his campaign, er, committee, sent out this morning.

"North Carolina has an unemployment rate well above the national average of 10%, so we're anxious to hear what the President has to say in his economic message" in Raleigh today, McCrory writes.

Except that the national average is not 10 percent, and North Carolina's rate isn't well above that. North Carolina's rate in July, the latest numbers available, was 10.1 percent, and the national rate in August was 9.1 percent.


The rate is way too high, nationally and in North Carolina, but McCrory needs to check his numbers.

3:12 p.m. update: Speaking of misspeaking, President Barack Obama botched the job title of one of North Carolina's leading citizens during his remarks at N.C. State today. He called Tom Ross the "president of North Carolina State University." Ross, of course, is the president of the UNC system.

-- Posted by Taylor Batten, for the Observer editorial board

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess since we've had 9% unemployment for so long now, it feels higher.

BoBelinski said...

Pure political B.S. Like McCrory could, or would, do anything to help ordinary North Carolinians who need jobs. His, and his party's, priority is making sure the moneybags keep raking it in at the expense of the rest of us. The difference these days is that they're not fooling many people anymore.