The Republican Myth of Obama’s ‘Part-Time America’ Gets Destroyed With One Graph

part time America via Derek Thompson for The Atlantic

Derek Thompson slayed the Republican talking point about Obama’s “Part-Time America” today in The Atlantic in an article entitled, “Here’s What Obama’s ‘Part-Time America’ Really Looks Like.”

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He opened with a bang, “The president’s critics love this talking point. But since 2010, full-time jobs are up 7.6 million, and part-time jobs have declined by more than 900,000.”

This Republican myth has been debunked regularly but that doesn’t stop them from trudging it out at the corner of embarrassed and desperate, thus Mort Zuckerman dragged out the mold yesterday for the Wall Street Journal, aka, Rupert Murdoch’s Other Foxian Arm.

So Thompson goes in for the kill. All it took was a graph.

Here’s a screengrab but you have to go to The Atlantic to play with it:

part time America via Derek Thompson for The Atlantic

Thompson pointed out several facts to bear in mind regarding the part-time versus full-time discussion, one of which was via a document produced by the Fed, which explained that “current levels of part-time work are largely within historical norms, despite increases for selected demographic groups, such as prime-age workers with a high-school degree or less.” Of course, Republicans don’t “believe” in the Fed. They think the Fed is part of an evil Marxist plot to takeover America with marketplace competition like Obamacare. So these facts probably won’t get you anywhere in a “debate” with true believers.

In September of 2013, we debunked the fevered hopes of a flailing party after House Majority Leader-elect (then Whip) Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) tweeted, “90% of the jobs created have been part-time. Obamacare creates a part-time economy, part-time opportunity, and a part-time America.” Not true.

Just a month prior, PolitiFact had taken on this hazy right wing fantasy when they rated as true a claim by Alan Krueger, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, that most jobs created since passage of the health care law have been full-time positions.

“(S)ince the Affordable Care Act passed, 90 percent of job growth has been in full-time positions.” The statistics show that 87 percent of the increase in jobs between March 2010 and July 2013 consisted of full-time jobs. A shorter time frame would show the opposite pattern, but on the numbers, Krueger is right. We rate the claim True.

It’s mid 2014 and Republicans haven’t changed their claims one bit. No need to let reality intrude on their pleasant dreams of America failing.

Republicans like to infuse the image of the President with their idea that under him, America has become lazy and due to his healthcare reform law, America is so lazy that it’s broken. Thus, they call him the part-time President and slobber over their fictional idea that the first black president has created a nation of lazy Americans who are only working part-time. Because, you know, they are so not racists.

Yet these same Republicans justify the laziest people in government — the US House of Representatives. The GOP-led House is the place legislation goes to die and crazy extremist go to be enabled. Meanwhile Republicans cut the working days down each year, demanding their same salary for doing nothing and instead spend 30%-70% of their time fundraising. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor rewarded the least popular House in history by cutting their number of scheduled work days even further than the already whittled 126 in 2013 to 113 in 2014.

Nice work if you can get it.

The truth is that Americans are hurting for well-paying jobs. The President has been urging Congress to follow his lead and raise the minimum wage, but Republicans are against this previously bipartisan action. They claim they are sure it will kill job creation, but that has been debunked by the Economic Policy Institute, who pointed out that in fact not only would it be good for the economy, but it will also have a positive effect on job creation.

Americans aren’t lazy and neither is President Obama. House Republicans? They’re as lazy and entitled as they come. They are also the only people in this scenario who willfully reduced their own working days until they are part-time legislators, but demanded the same pay for less work. That finger they’re pointing at Obama? Four more are pointing back at them.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

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