Greece Outside In: Presidential debates: 10 datasets and charts you need to know

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Presidential debates: 10 datasets and charts you need to know

The US Presidential debates are over. So, what are the key datasets to help you understand the issues that were raised?
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The third Presidential debate last night is the last of this season. Over the three events, some issues keep rearing their heads - and some came out of nowhere. Here is some of the key data you need to follow them.

1. Unemployment

The issue surfaced in all the debates, with Mitt Romney saying in the second:

We have fewer people working today than we had when the president took office. If the — the unemployment rate was 7.8% when he took office, it's 7.8% now. But if you calculated that unemployment rate, taking back the people who dropped out of the workforce, it would be 10.7%

The latest US jobless figures show American unemployment has taken a drop to 7.8% - the same figure Barack Obama inherited in 2009. The US added another 114,000 jobs last month, and there are now 12.1 million unemployed people, down by 456,000. This is the first time it has gone below 8% in four years.

Latest unemployment claims data" shows that for the week of October 13, initial claims were 388,000, an increase of 46,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 342,000.
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2. The deficit

Barack Obama brought up his deficit reduction plan in the first debate:

I've put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan…. And the way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 of additional revenue

The Congressional Budget Office has measured the effect of the Obama plan on the deficit and says they would increase over time.

The deficit would decline further relative to GDP in subsequent years, reaching 2.5% by 2017, but then would increase again, reaching 3.0% of GDP in 2022

3. The national debt

Romney said in the second debate:

We've gone from $10 trillion of national debt, to $16 trillion of national debt. If the president were reelected, we'd go to almost $20 trillion of national debt. This puts us on a road to Greece.

The US debt has been growing for some time - and if you were one of the many people who gets it mixed up with the deficit, the difference is that the deficit is essentially the running overdraft, the debt is the national mortgage. US national debt has grown starkly, from $7.8tn in 2005 to busting through the US debt ceiling of $14.294tn last year - according to the day by day figures.

If it's any consolation to Americans, the UK's national debt is worse compared to the size of the economy, or GDP.

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China

China surfaced in both the second and third debates as the candidates struggled with the role of the giant economy.

Romney said during the debate last night

We have an enormous trade imbalance with China, and it's worse this year than last year and it's worse last year than the year before

Although, as the chart above shows, the US has been running a trade deficit with China since 1985, covering the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama.

In the second, Romney accused the Chinese of driving down the value of their economy - the excellent Washington Post The Fix showed it had actually been rising against the dollar.

Tax cuts

Tax proposals came up repeatedly during the debates. In the first debate, Obama said:

Governor Romney's central economic plan calls for a $5 trillion tax cut — on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts — that's another trillion dollars

So, what are the proposals? Research by the US Tax Policy Center has pulled together the two proposals. It says Romney's proposals would reduce tax revenue by $500bn in 2015. The Washington Post says of the plans

Romney also has said he will make his plan "revenue neutral" by eliminating tax loopholes and deductions, although he has not provided the details. The Tax Policy Center has analyzed the specifics of Romney's plan thus far released and concluded that the numbers aren't there to make it revenue neutral.

The auto industry

Although the bailouts of the auto industry are over, the issue is still a live one in the debates. Obama said of Romney in the second debate:

When Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go bankrupt, I said we're going to bet on American workers

To which Romney replied:

He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that's right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy's and Continental Airlines and come out stronger. And I know he keeps saying, you want to take Detroit bankrupt. Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did

In 2012, the auto industry is looking healthier, with growth even on last year, according to this data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows employment up slightly on 2011, 53,400 on the year before.

However, hourly earnings for those in auto manufacturing haven't kept pace with inflation, down from $21.97 last year to $21.15 now.

If you look at the employment data by region it shows slight improvements on last year. But still not a complete revival.

Health care

US health care and 'Obama care' came up repeatedly too.

Said Obama in the second debate

And over the last two years, health care premiums have gone up — it's true — but they've gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years

So, how does the US compare? Although it doesn't have a national health service like the UK, it still has the highest health spending in the world. The US has the highest health spending in the world - equivalent to 17.9% of its gross domestic product (GDP), or $8,362 per person. And it's not all private - government spending is at $4,437 per person, only behind Luxembourg, Monaco and Norway.
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World cop

The US is still the world's policeman, which was the backdrop to yesterday's debate. Said Romney

Nowhere in the world is our influence greater than it was four years ago

Well, there are still a lot US boots on the ground around the globe.

We've extracted data from the US Department of Defense, which shows how the face of the US military abroad has changed since 2008. In 2008, Iraq was the biggest overseas deployment of US troops, now Afghanistan dominates. The numbers of personnel at home in the US gone up though, by 13.5% to 1,017,418, however the number deployed around the world has increased by 2.1% under Obama to 1,414,149.
• Explore the interactive map and download the data

Size of the Navy

How big is the US Navy? It's become an issue, with Romney saying:

Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917

To which Obama replied:

You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines

We extracted the data from the US Department of Defense archive and it shows that the Navy is smaller now than in 1917, with 285 vessels, compared to 342. But obviously that is all types of ships - and those types have changed over the century, from Battleships to submarines to aircraft carriers. That peak in 1945 is amphibious vessels for the D-day landings, for instance.