ZELDIN | Lee Z's No Eco-Hero – He's an Eco-Zero

Trump😘Zeldin
Lee Zeldin's Trump's friend,
On Long Island's East End.
Tea Party? He ran it.
No friends of the Planet.
(Clerihew by JT Marlin.)

The following letter has been published in the East Hampton Star, Thursday, August 10, 2017:

Against the Environment

Springs

August 7, 2017

Dear Mr. Rattray,

The Star’s article on Representative Lee Zeldin’s bill to study the future of Plum Island [http://bit.ly/2ueg4Gp] could leave the misleading impression that he is pro-environment. He is not.

Since he came to Washington, Zeldin’s votes have been approximately 10 to 1 against the environment, as measured by the nonpartisan League of Conservation Voters [http://bit.ly/2v7qR48]. 

Of 27 New York State members of Congress, he is among the three with the worst environmental record.

He is using the Plum Island bill to pose as environmentally friendly. But “his” bill was first introduced by the pro-environment former Representative Tim Bishop in 2013, when the threat that Plum Island could become a housing development, or even a Trump resort, was real [http://bit.ly/2v7RkwP].

Now the danger is much less. The Town of Southold put in place anti-development zoning changes; environmental groups with Morrison & Foerster [http://bit.ly/2uuzfH8], have sued to prevent commercial development of Plum Island, and the federal budget includes the cost of moving the animal disease research facility to Manhattan, Kan., in 2022.

So Zeldin’s press release grandstanding is cynical misdirection. Instead of being fooled, folks at home should watch his misbehavior in Washington. All of his prior votes in 2017 were against our ecology, including one to delay implementing anti-smog standards.

Zeldin is no eco-hero. His eco-vote is close to zero.

JOHN TEPPER MARLIN

JOBS | Suffolk County, NY

How is Trump doing?

In 2010, Randy Altschuler attacked the incumbent congressman from Suffolk County, NY, Rep. Tim Bishop, for not doing enough for the Long Island economy.

He said that 30,000 jobs had left Long Island during Bishop's incumbency. I pointed out in an article on Huffington Post that the number was a lie. The correct figure was a gain of 36,000 jobs. Altschuler stopped using the number, but not until after he sent a glossy card to every voter with the lie plastered all over it.

Lee Zeldin was next to campaign against Bishop, in 2008. He lost badly in a Republican-leaning district. But in 2014 he adopted a straight Tea Party program, one of the first campaigners to do this. Here were his four main programs:

1. Oppose raising the Federal minimum wage.
2. Curtail Medicaid benefits. 
3. Simplify the Federal tax code and cut taxes on the rich. 
4. Cut Federal spending.

Zeldin was one of the first of the Tea Party electeds, in 2014. The GOP gained a majority in both the House and Senate in the 114th Congress, 2015-16. So how have Zeldin and the GOP Congress been helping Suffolk County? Let's ignore the first year, during which Zeldin was finding out where the bathrooms are in the maze of Capitol offices. Few Members of Congress make a dent in Washington in their first year (one reason for respecting seniority). Let's look at the second year of his term of office. How has the Suffolk County economy performed in 2016?

County-level numbers for jobs and wages are released quarterly and the numbers for the fourth quarter of 2016 were just released by the BLS on Wednesday. Here is the story for Suffolk:

Jobs. Suffolk's nonfarm payroll jobs rose to 661,400 in the fourth quarter of 2016, an increase of 900 jobs.

That's fewer than 1,000 jobs, compared with Bishop's presiding over growth of   36,000 jobs when he was attacked by the GOP for not doing enough for the economy.

The tiny growth rate during 2016 ranks 205th of 345 large counties for which the BLS computes this information, about 60 percent down the list. Within New York State, the growth rate is in the bottom half of the 18 large counties on the BLS list.

Wages. But maybe, has the quality of the jobs improved under Zeldin? What has happened to weekly wages? The news is much worse. Wages in Suffolk County declined by 3.5 percent, placing the county 289th out of 345 large U.S. counties, i.e., in the bottom fifth. Only two counties out of the 18 in New York State did worse.

This is not a good record. Since November 2016 the GOP has not only Congress but the White House, and a president who promised more jobs. We are waiting and watching.

MALONEY | Dem Electeds in Sag Harbor

L to R: Rebecca Seawright, Carolyn Maloney and
Tim Bishop. Photos by JT Marlin.

July 8, 2015–Mitch Draizin kindly opened his $3 million Sag Harbor house for a fundraiser for Democrats on Sunday afternoon.

Mitch is principal of Longview Capital Advisors, Inc which serves middle-market NYC real estate developers as a financial advisor, as well as a mortgage and investment banker.

Mitchell serves as a Trustee at Truman National Security Project/CNP, Advisory Board for The New Leaders Council (NLC), NY/NJ Board of Directors for Playworks and Board of Directors for The Congressional Award.

Lots of carp in Mitch Draizin's fish pond.

He mentors young people who are entering the real estate and finance professions.

He is also a volunteer teacher of  a high school course in Economics and Entrepreneurism in two NYC schools.

The beneficiaries of the fundraising were Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Assemblywoman Rebecca A. Seawright

Introducing them were Former Rep. Tim Bishop, NY State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, and Eleanor Roosevelt's biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook.

L to R: Bishop, Maloney, Seawright
and Tom DiNapoli.

NYC Public Advocate Tish James was there and conducted a highly effective auction of a lunch with Blanche Cook. My bid was lost in the dust.

Tom DiNapoli gave what I thought was an effective introductory speech. He was elected with 51 percent of the vote in 2010 and 60 percent in 2014.

Mitch Draizin's house has a fish pond with a fine collection of carp.

I spoke with Rita Wasserman of Springs and Clare Coss, the playwright whose well-reviewed play Dr. Du Bois and Miss Ovington was produced in New York City in February.

NY STATE | Recent Prosperity Originates Downstate

L to R: John Tepper Marlin, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY12)
 and Tim Bishop (D-NY1). Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.

Rep. Tim Bishop spoke at an event over the weekend welcoming back Rep. Carolyn Maloney from China.

Bishop told the group in Bridgehampton, NY that he would be facing a challenger backed again by Tea Party bankrollers.

The reason is that NY-1 had one of the weakest majorities for Obama in the last election.

However, if the plan is to dredge up the last campaign's attacks on Bishop for not doing enough for the Suffolk County economy, as both opposition candidates promised, recent new data do not support the idea that Suffolk County has been slipping.

On the contrary, Nassau and Suffolk had New York State's lowest metro area unemployment rate in May and again in June. On a county basis, both Nassau and Suffolk had among the lowest ten unemployment rates of 62 NY State countries, averaging 4.9 percent. By comparison, the Bronx unemployment rate was 10.8 percent and Brooklyn's was 8.3 percent. The NYC unemployment rate fell slightly between June and July. The unemployment rate has increased slightly in the United States in July compared with June, seasonally adjusted, and in NY State outside of NY City. NY State’s unemployment rate was unchanged between June and July, at 6.6 percent, the lowest level since November 2008.

NY State jobs were again in July above 9 million, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning (Table D). This is the third consecutive month of jobs above 9 million, and the 20th consecutive month of jobs growth. The state added 17,300 private-sector jobs. Total private-sector jobs in NY State are at an all-time high of more than 7.6 million.  Jobs in NY State have grown in 38 of the past 43 months

Private-sector jobs have continued to grow in July 2014 compared with the same month in 2013:

United States                          +2.2%
New York State                      +1.9%
Downstate NY (10-co. area)    +2.4%
New York City                         +3.0%
Suburban Counties                 +1.2%
Nassau-Suffolk                       +1.6%
Upstate NY (52-co. area)        +0.9%

In the 10-county Downstate region, private-sector jobs grew by 2.4% over the past year. Downstate’s private-sector job growth was most rapid in New York City (+3.0 percent) and in Nassau-Suffolk (+1.6 percent).

In the 52-county Upstate region, private-sector jobs grew 0.9 percent over the past year. Private-sector job growth occurred in both the region’s metro areas (+1.0 percent) and in counties outside of metro areas (+0.3 percent). One metro area in the state lost private sector jobs between July 2013 and July 2014, i.e., Syracuse (-1.2 percent).

Rep. Bishop has been a major advocate for education in the Congress, and (private) educational and health services are the fastest-growing sector in NY State.

NY State Major Industry Sectors that Gained Jobs
 Growth between July 2013 and July 2014 (details here):
Educational & Health Services*       +53,400
Professional & Business Services     +30,600
Trade, Transportation & Utilities        +28,200
Leisure & Hospitality                         +22,200
Construction                                     +8,400
Other Services                                  +5,800
Financial Activities                                +500
Information                                           +400
Natural Resources & Mining                 +300
*Educational and health services are in the private sector.

A Tea Party opponent will have trouble making the argument that Rep. Bishop has been allowing government employment to get out of control in NY State, since government jobs in NY State fell during the year ending July 2014.

Major Sectors that Lost Jobs (Decline between July 2013 and July 2014)
Manufacturing                                     -9,200
Government**                                     -6,200
**Government jobs include public education and public health services.

Long Island Economy in an Election Year

Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties are comparable
economies, with 544,000 (Queens) to 640,500 (Suffolk) jobs.

With all of its U.S. reps in DC up for re-election in 2014, the latest quarter of data on jobs and wages is worth looking at with an eye to what it means for the political environment.

For example, in  New York's First Congressional District, which accounts for most of Suffolk County, both of the main candidates for the Republican nomination on June 24 (Lee Zeldin and George Demos) have announced that they plan to make their main issue the economy.

They plan to paint the incumbent, Rep. Tim Bishop, as a pro-regulation, pro-spending Democrat who has contributed to higher taxes in Suffolk County.

So it will pay to stay a step ahead of the electoral clamor and look at three counties that may help establish the context of the debate - Queens, Nassau and Suffolk. Their fourth-quarter 2013 jobs and wages data were just published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning.

• The three counties are remarkably similar in economic size, with between 49,000 (Queens) and 53,300 (Nassau) establishments.
• Of the three, Suffolk County has the most jobs, 640,500. Nassau is in second place with 616,700 jobs and Queens with 544,500.
• It is true that the growth in jobs in Suffolk County compared with the fourth quarter of 2012 is the slowest of the three counties, 1.2 percent, behind Queens with 1.5 percent and Nassau with 2.3 percent. But Suffolk's growth is near the U.S. median for the 335 largest counties - it's not terrible.
• Meanwhile, on the wage front, Suffolk has done very well. The average wage per week in the fourth quarter was $1,079, an increase of 1.9 percent over a year earlier. This is in the top one-sixth of all large counties in the nation. Suffolk's weekly wage is nearly as high as that of Nassau, at $1,120.
• However, during the same year that Suffolk's wages were rising, Nassau's were falling by 1.5 percent. Both Nassau and Suffolk wages are higher than in Queens, which has a weekly wage of $955, a 2.1 percent increase over 2012.

The job and salary data do not provide a prima facie case that either Suffolk or Nassau County suffers from over-regulation or over-taxation, at least compared with the rest of the United States.

If prior elections are a guide, however, don't under-estimate the ability of campaigners to find data to support the economic case they want to make against an incumbent.

If you torture data enough, they will confess.

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.

SYRIA | NY Voters Opposed to U.S. Action

Rep. Carolyn Maloney gives mic to Alice

Tepper Marlin as Rep. Tim Bishop looks on.

Sept. 8, 2013–A vote on military action was taken at a fundraiser that my wife Alice and I supported for Rep. Carolyn Maloney yesterday on the East End of Long Island, NY, hosted by Rep. Tim Bishop.

The Q&A was extraordinary. Sharp questions, good answers. The voters of NY1 and NY12 are well represented.

Neither Bishop nor Maloney is listed as of September 6 (Friday) in the Think Progress tabulation as leaning either for or against action in Syria. In the House of Representatives, 39 expect to vote yes to Syrian action, 223 probably no.

Polls show that most Americans oppose U.S. action in Syria.

This is reflected in the mail for Rep. Bishop. He says that 95 percent of his constituents' messages are against a strike in Syria.

Rep. Maloney asked for a show of hands for support of a strike at Syria for use of chemical weapons. Only three people put their hands up, and 40-50 hands went up by people opposed.

FUNDRAISER | Bishop Hosts Maloney in East Hampton, 2013

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (NY-12) will be in East Hampton at a midday brunch fundraiser on Saturday, September 7, 2013.

Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney is:
"A tenacious, resilient legislator”  --Time Magazine

"A tiger in the House on every dollar due New York”  --The Village Voice

"The best friend a credit card user ever had”  --Money Magazine

 “No one has been a greater (anti-trafficking) champion than Carolyn Maloney, a Democratic Congresswoman from New York." -- Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, “Half the Sky” (Knopf, 2009) 

"While I am critical of Congress, kudos have to be given to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, for her efforts..."  --Joseph E. Stiglitz, "Freefall" (Norton, 2009)  

First elected to Congress in 1992, Carolyn B. Maloney is recognized as a national leader with extensive accomplishments on financial services, national security, the economy, and women’s issues. She is a senior member of both the House Financial Services Committee (where she serves as Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets) and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and the Ranking House member of the Joint Economic Committee. In the House Democratic Caucus, she serves as a Regional Whip (she served as Vice-Chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee in the 112th Congress).

Her career has been a series of firsts. Maloney is the first woman to represent New York’s 12th Congressional District; the first woman to represent New York City’s 7th Councilmanic district (where she was the first woman to give birth while in office); and was the first woman to Chair the Joint Economic Committee, a House and Senate panel that examines and addresses the nation’s most pressing economic issues. Only 18 women in history have chaired Congressional committees.

On the House Financial Services Committee, she has worked to modernize financial services laws and regulations, strengthen consumer protections, and institute more vigilant oversight of the safety and soundness of our nation’s banking industry. In the 113th Congress, she was selected by her Committee colleagues to be Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises. She continues her membership on the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit (which she chaired in the 109th and 110th Congresses, and where she served as Ranking Member in the 112th Congress), and joins the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

She served on the historic conference committee for the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, which also created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights (the Credit CARD Act) was signed into law by President Obama in Spring of 2009. As a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Maloney legislation has helped government work more efficiently and has saved hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.  

As co-founder of the House 9/11 Commission Caucus, Maloney helped author and pass legislation which created the 9/11 Commission and, later, to implement all of the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations for improving intelligence gathering—described as the most influential intelligence bill in decades.  The James Zadroga 9/11 Health Care and Compensation Act, her bill to provide health care and compensation for 9/11 first responders, residents and workers near Ground Zero passed Congress in late 2010 was signed into law by President Obama January 2, 2011.

As a champion for domestic and international women’s issues, Maloney helped pass legislation that targets the ‘demand’ side of sex trafficking; provides annual mammograms for women on Medicare; the Debbie Smith Act which increases funding for law enforcement to process DNA rape kits, termed ‘the most important anti-rape legislation in history.’ Her legislation to create Women’s Health Offices in five Federal agencies was part of the landmark health care reform legislation signed by President Obama.

New York City has no stronger advocate in Congress than Maloney. She has delivered over $7 billion in federal aid to New York City just in the last ten years, including hundreds of millions of dollars each for two of the largest transit construction projects in the nation, the Second Avenue Subway and East Side Access project, both of which run through her district, and have helped create thousands of  jobs in New York. Most recently, over $300 million in federal grants were directed to high speed rail improvement projects in the Sunnyside Rail Yards in Queens, which will help remove a bottleneck toward high speed rail in the Northeast Corridor.

Many Maloney bills have been signed at ceremonies in the White House, where all the principal legislators involved in the legislation witness the President signing their bill into law.

Her visit is hosted by Rep. Tim Bishop (NY-1). Bishop is a major target of GOP strategists, but in the last two elections, he has twice fended off a candidate of the Long Island Tea Party.

For more information about the September 7 brunch fundraiser for Rep. Maloney, contact Rep. Bishop's office at mbishop@bishopforcongress.com or me at john@cityeconomist.com.

IBO | Uses PUMS Data to Clarify NYC Job Trends

This is a good news story for people who care about trends in jobs and unemployment in the nation, state, and city.

The Independent Budget Office has used the American Community Survey to create a new household employment and unemployment series. The ACS is a new (since 2005) data collection program of the Census Bureau that uses a sample of 250,000 U.S. households to generate more frequent data on demographic and other trends between decennial Censuses. The IBO unveiled the new series in its February 2013 Fiscal Brief (http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/febacsemployment2013.pdf).

This development is welcome because for decades the household employment numbers (based on a monthly sample of 70,000+ households nationwide) have been less consistent than the payroll jobs numbers, which are based on a much broader base of unemployment insurance filings monitored by the labor departments of every state and collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The divergence between the two numbers sets up a controversy as to which number to believe. On Long Island last year, an unsuccessful challenger to Rep. Tim Bishop (NY-1) sent out expensive mailings misusing the household survey to argue that if 100,000 more people were unemployed, it meant there were 100,000 fewer jobs. In fact, payrolls were rising during the period. The increase in unemployment meant that a handful of people were reporting that they had decided to look for work, and their response was inappropriately extrapolated and mis-characterized.

Two points to bear in mind, to avoid misusing the unemployment numbers, are: (1) They are based on a tiny sample when used for regional analysis as small as a Congressional District, and (2) They represent a sub-sample of people who are self-declared as looking for work.

In New York City, for example, if the sample of households is 1,500 and we are measuring the number of unemployed, and there are two people per household, an unemployment rate of 9 percent means that the 1,500 telephone respondents are reporting to the Census Bureau (acting for the BLS) that 270 people out of 3,000 have recently been looking for work. That's a tiny number of people on which to base a widely watched number. The unemployment rate can jump around as people in the responding households stop looking one month and start looking again the next month.

The fluctuations could feed on themselves, as a small change in the rate is reflected in headlines of New York City newspapers (or, on Long Island, Newsday) and create a false sense that the job market is getting better or worse. The fluctuations in an area could simply reflect changes in the weather. The BLS has tried to adjust the numbers to reduce the volatility, but that create a whole new set of problems, as real turning points are assumed to be noise.

So it's a real help that the IBO has identified another source of information as a benchmark for checking on the household survey, the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) of 250,000 households that is used for the American Community Survey. This sample is rich in demographic data and being larger is more reliable, especially for use at the local level.  The data go down to the PUMA,  a local geographic area, which in New York City are the 50+ Community Districts overseen by Community Boards in each borough and are roughly equivalent in size to a Council Member district, although the political districts are not coterminous with electoral districts.

The IBO has already used the PUMS data to analyze traffic congestion, finding that 1.9 million people commute into the New York City congestion zone to work and of the commuters by car, more than one-fourth are from New Jersey and nearly 10 percent are from Bergen County alone (see http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/newsfax/insidethebudget154.pdf).

The bottom line of the new ACS-based series is that the recent extrapolated changes in employment runs between the payroll numbers and the household numbers. This suggests that the high BLS numbers for unemployed New Yorkers, despite strong growth in payrolls, are measuring something real. Several theories about what has been happening that have been widely promulgated - such as an increase in commuters - are shot down by the Microdata numbers. The persistently high unemployment rate in New York City is confirmed as real, and the IBO explanation is simply that as the economy is growing, more people look for work, thereby growing the labor force available for hire. Nothing new about that.

What is new is that we have another movie camera with which to follow these trends. Thank you, IBO.

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