JOBS | Rep. Tim Bishop and the Suffolk County

When Rep. Bishop was challenged two years ago for a second time by Randy Altschuler, Altschuler distributed tens of thousands of flyers accusing Bishop of having "forced more than 30,000 jobs to leave" Suffolk County.

That grossly erroneous number was based on an improper use of the household survey, which is based on a telephone interview of small sample of households to determine the unemployment rate.

Looking at the correct database, in September 2012, I showed that employment in Suffolk County had increased by 36,300 jobs, a difference of 66,300 jobs from that claimed by Altschuler.

Lee Zeldin, who has challenged Tim Bishop before in 2008, when Barack Obama swept into office, is back again in a different environment. When Zeldin first entered the 2014 race, he said his campaign would be based on economic issues.

In fact, Zeldin has avoided raising economic issues, and for a good reason. The national economy has been perking along to the point where recovery to an unemployment rate of less than 6 percent has finally occurred. Recovery is at a slower rate than anyone predicted, because the depth of the financial stress left in 2008 was greater than anyone knew at the time.

The economies of Suffolk County, Long Island, and Greater New York, have been doing fine, better than most of the rest of New York State and New Jersey.

To his credit, Zeldin has not attempted to argue that Suffolk County has lost jobs. His economic arguments, as outlined in this week's East Hampton Press (p. A5), have instead been drawn from the general ideology of the Tea Party, as follows:

• He opposes raising the Federal minimum wage, on the basis that it would be a burden on some small businesses.
• He argues that Medicaid is being abused and people should be denied the benefits.
• He says the Federal tax code should be simplified to reduce exploration of deductions and exemptions. He favors a flatter tax.
• He wants to cut Federal spending.
• He says he has had 48 new laws passed in Albany during the past four years.
• He voted for repeal of the MTA payroll tax and for a tax credit for New York State craft brewers.

Bishop answers that he is pragmatic and non-ideological, looking for solutions that benefit his constituents:

• He favors a minimum wage of $10.10 by 2016 to keep pace with inflation and help the working poor make ends meet. (The minimum wage and overtime laws have many exemptions based on type of business and type of employee; they reduce the impact on small businesses most concerned about the impact on their costs.)
• He has voted for tax cuts to help small businesses hire U.S. workers, has worked to eliminate tax loopholes to benefit companies outsourcing American jobs and favors tax cuts for the middle class.
• Having opposed efforts to end existing Medicare programs, he supports a guarantee of Medicare and Social Security. 
• He supports Federal spending on infrastructure spending, education and training - he led the fight for the Federal science and technology budget that was threatened and would have eliminated thousands of jobs at the Brookhaven National Lab.
• He is working with the FAA to ensure that a replacement of the air traffic control facility at Westbury is kept on Long Island.

Regardless whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, Tim Bishop has one huge advantage over Lee Zeldin - he has been in Congress since 2003. He knows his way around Washington. Zeldin does not. Bishop has built relationships with other Members of Congress, and has seniority on the committees he is a member of. He can do more for businesses and workers and jobs on the East End of Long Island than his challenger, who will be starting over from scratch.

NYC | $ per Vote–de Blasio Lowest, $24

Bill de Blasio is the most efficient campaign spender so far this year, based on figures provided by Sam Roberts on p. A20 of today's New York Times, supplemented by my own historical investigation.

De Blasio spent $24 per vote (the same amount that Peter Minuit paid the Lenape or Canarsee Indians in goods for all of Manhattan, Battery not included) to campaign for the Democratic nomination for Mayor from the office of Public Advocate.

Thompson, two-time former City Comptroller, spent $36 per vote. Quinn spent $60 per vote. The Democrats were all more efficient in their spending than the Republicans, except for Anthony Weiner.

	Party	$ Million	$ per Vote	Votes
de Blasio	D	6.8	24	283,333
Thompson	D	6.6	36	183,333
Quinn	D	6.6	60	110,000
Liu	D	3.2	68	47,059
Lhota	R	3.8	119	31,933
Bloomberg, 2009	R	102.0	174	586,207
Weiner	D	6.6	190	34,737
Lauder, 1989	R	13.0	352	36,908
Catsimatidis	R	10.4	419	24,821

John Catsimatidis now outranks Ronald Lauder on spending per vote. Catsimatidis may be the biggest NYC mayoral campaign spender in history based on results, $419 per vote.

Ronald Lauder's 1989 primary campaign, costing $352 per vote, was at the time described as the most expensive campaign per vote in U.S. history.

The high cost of Mayor Bloomberg's 2009 campaign is also clear from this table - $174 per vote, $102 million total - 15 times the total amount that Bill de Blasio spent becoming the Democratic nominee for Mayor this year.

But Linda McMahon spent $454 per vote in the 2010 Connecticut GOP primary for U.S. Senate. She won it but then lost the general election with spending of $95 per vote - the most spent in any state or local general election in 2010.

In New York State, the most costly primary was the $3.1 million battle between Chris Cox and Randy Altschuler in NY District 1. Altschuler won, spending $191 per vote (Cox spent $195 per vote), but went on to lose to incumbent Tim Bishop, spending another $2 million for a $23-per-vote cost in the general election.

The success of the de Blasio primary campaign, if followed up by similar success in the faceoff with Lhota next month, will boost the already-strong credentials of de Blasio's campaign consultants -

• John de Cecato of AKPD Message and Media, founded by David Axelrod (de Cecato prepared the famous ad featuring Dante and his Afro). 
• Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which did the polling for the de Blasio campaign. 
• Joe Rospars of Blue State Digital, the people who were brought together for the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, got behind Barack Obama in 2008 and signed up 13 million supporters for him online, raising $500 million via Quick Donate.

Of course, the campaign consultants should not get all the credit for the success of the candidate. Some of that should go to Mr. de Blasio himself, his Wellesley College wife Chirlane McCray, and their two impressive children.

JOBS | Suffolk County (Postscript Feb. 3, 2016)

August 18, 2012–Rep. Tim Bishop's challenger has sent out a glossy flyer repeating in bold face the canard that "Long Island has lost more than 30,000 jobs since Tim Bishop became the Congressman". This is weaker than saying he "chased away" the jobs. But it is still an error and unfair. It remains on Mr. Altschuler's website on August 18. (Postscript Feb. 3, 2016: It has since been removed.)

On August 6 I sent a second letter to the East Hampton Star noting the continued error. The letter was published on August 16.

Five Pinocchios

Springs, August 6, 2012

To The Star: On June 28, I wrote protesting the economic data coming from the Altschuler campaign, which said that Congressman Bishop has “chased away thousands of jobs” from Long Island. I noted that during the past year Long Island has in fact gained 12,000 payroll jobs. 
  
So now I see a press release dated today from this campaign. It now takes a longer view. It says that “Long Island has lost more than 30,000 jobs since Tim Bishop became the Congressman.” 
  
There was a time at the end of the George W. Bush presidency, when the deregulated financial system was shedding jobs. But this is 2012. I checked the record. The latest number for payroll jobs on Long Island is June 2012, 1,275,000 jobs. This is from the New York Department of Labor. Subtract the base of 1,238,200 in June 2002, when Congressman Bishop was first elected.

The difference is a 36,800-job gain, while Congressman Bishop’s opponent reports a 30,000-job loss. That’s a gap of 66,800 jobs. 

As the late great Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Or, he might have added, his or her own arithmetic. 
  
One can understand a rounding error or a seasonal adjustment mistake. But when the direction of the data is reversed for a number that has already been publicly questioned, it rises to a reckless disregard for facts. If the previous error deserves two Pinocchios, this one deserves five.
JOHN TEPPER MARLIN

The Altschuler campaign seems have gotten the message. The references to the 30,000 loss of jobs has been deleted in several places, as it should be–but not in every place. It's good that he has removed some of the erroneous statements. But what would an ethical person do to make restitution for the wrong facts in all the flyers that were sent out? How about a public admission that the statement was wrong?

Meanwhile, a new claim is being made on the website (Postscript Feb. 3, 2016: This site has been taken down).

Nearly 40,000 more people on Long Island are unemployed today than they were when Tim Bishop was sworn into Congress almost ten years ago.

This is a very different statement. It's now about the number of unemployed people and not about the number of jobs. This shifts the focus from the comprehensive payroll jobs report that the BLS collects from 400,000 employers, to the Current Population Survey.  Mr. Altschuler might not have cited the number of unemployed in the way he did if he knew these five facts about the survey: 

1. It's a small sample. A national sample of about one in every 1,250 households is conducted once a month to determine the number of employed persons and the number of unemployed and other characteristics of each household.  In the case of New York State, the monthly sample size is 3,730 households out of a population of 19.5 million. For Long Island, it implies a sample size of about 544 and for Suffolk County alone of 287.
2. Unemployment is an active mode. An interviewer contacts the head of household and finds out which members of the household are working and how many are not working but are actively seeking work.People are classified as unemployed if they are available for work and have taken specific actions during the previous four weeks to look for work. So when the number of unemployed goes up it could mean something positive, i.e., a greater confidence in the future of the economy, leading those who are without work to take active steps to apply for a position.
3. The BLS is properly nervous about how the data will be used. The original purpose of the Current Population Survey is to produce a national unemployment rate. The latest metro numbers (for June) are marked  preliminary. The user is warned that the numbers are "controlled to statewide totals" and inputs may be "revised" and "re-estimated". Because of the small sample at the county level, the data are not seasonally adjusted. 
4. Employed people may have more than one job. That is one way that the job numbers and the civilian employment numbers can be reconciled.
5. The number of unemployed needs to be related to county population and employment growth. Of the 100,000 growth in Long Island's population during the 11 years following the 2000 Census, approximately 10,000 were in Nassau County and 90,000 were in Suffolk. The First District of New York that Mr. Altschuler aspires to represent is in the eastern end of Suffolk County. 

Stay tuned.

Suffolk County Jobs

Congressman Tim Bishop has been described by his opponent as chasing thousands of jobs away from Long Island.

It is not true.

Some background: Rep. Bishop was first elected to represent the First District of New York in 2002. He is a 12th-generation resident of Southampton, NY. He received a BA degree from Holy Cross and an MA degree from Long Island University. Bishop served as Provost of Southampton College, where he worked starting in 1973.

He was challenged in 2010 by Randy Altschuler and won with fewer than 600 votes. He is being re-challenged this year by Altschuler, who grew up in New York City, attended Hunter College High School, Princeton (where he majored in German studies) and the Harvard Business School. In 1999, with a Princeton classmate, Altschuler created an outsourcing company called Office Tiger. They sold the company in 2006 for $250 million.

In 2010, Altschuler used $2.2 million of his own money to help finance his campaign.

This year, Republican PAC money is reportedly being focused on this race.

Here is my letter to the East Hampton Star on the claim that Bishop has been "chasing jobs" from Suffolk and Nassau Counties.

Economic Claims
Springs 
June 28, 2012
To The Star:
As former chief economist to three New York City comptrollers, I have been following the economic claims of the newly confirmed 2012 Republican candidate for Congress from the First District.
He describes our incumbent congressman, Tim Bishop, as having chased thousands of jobs away from Long Island. That is manifestly unfair, and out of date.
During the last year, Long Island jobs have grown 1 percent, i.e., by 12,000 jobs. The job losses occurred when the entire country and world were reeling from the financial catastrophe bequeathed by the prior G.O.P. administration.
Not only are jobs growing, but despite the deflationary campaign of the Tea Party, the average weekly wage of Suffolk County workers has held up better than three-quarters of other United States counties as of the latest available quarter.
This is all the more remarkable because: Suffolk County has more jobs than any other county in New York State except Manhattan, and it is only one of three of the largest 16 counties in New York State to have an average weekly wage above $1,000.
Michael Bloomberg successfully ran for mayor of New York City as a business leader right after 9/11, when the city’s economy was in trouble. The difference is that Mr. Bloomberg’s company created and retained thousands of jobs in New York City, the community where he was seeking office.
Randy Altschuler is asking to be elected in Suffolk County based on his plan and on his claim to have created jobs before he sold his outsourcing company, Office Tiger. But the jobs he says he created were west of Long Island and overseas in Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
Magnificent, but not Suffolk County. Compared with Mayor Bloomberg, that is a world of difference.
JOHN TEPPER MARLIN