Suppose it is dinnertime, and the phone rings. It is a polite survey taker with a simple question for you: How is the economy doing?
You might answer the question based upon the news stories you've seen recently about the latest unemployment rate, or perhaps based on anecdotal observations, such as whether your long-jobless cousin has had any luck finding work.
But a wide range of academic work suggests a different factor that is likely to shape your answer: whether the current occupant of the White House is of your preferred political party. Did unemployment get better or worse during Ronald Reagan's presidency? In a 1988 survey, some 80 percent of dedicated Republicans accurately said it had improved, compared with 30 percent of loyal Democrats. In the 1990s, the pattern reversed on a range of factual questions about economic and fiscal issues. In a 1997 survey, for example, Republicans were far less likely than Democrats to acknowledge that the budget deficit had declined during the Bill Clinton administration.
As an economics writer, I see the same thing anecdotally. When I wrote articles recently about the unemployment rate's dip to 5 percent, I received vehement responses from conservatives convinced that the Obama administration was cooking the numbers. They were not so different from responses I received from liberals when the jobless rate was at that level in 2005, during the George W. Bush administration. In other words, when you ask people about the economy, the answers are less a statement of objectivity and more like what they'd say if you'd asked which pro football team was the best. That has important implications for democracy. How can people judge whether a party is effective if there is no sense of objective truth?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
