Where do “they” come up with these numbers. The following made headlines just over a month ago, but something over the weekend brought it back to mind. This time I thought about it. There is a fact here, but the percentage is bunkum. If I’m missing the point, please, someone, set me straight.
WASHINGTON — Forty percent of Americans have never lived when there wasn’t a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. … Already, for 116 million Americans, there has never been a time when there wasn’t a Bush or Clinton in the White House, either as president or vice president. Does a nation of 303 million people really have only two families qualified to run the show?”
This Associated Press article by Nancy Benac from late September or early October does not quite attribute where she got her 40 percent from, except from the numbers 116,000,000 and 303,000,000, and that’s actually about 38.3 percent. So 40 percent is true, but 40 percent of what, again?
Benac does not explain this, although lots of commentators have taken the 40 percent and run with it. She does not explain the math, and she does not attribute the statistic. Her main source is separated by a few paragraphs, and is a political historian, Julian Zelizer, now of Princeton. The article does not come close to implying he’s behind the figure.
How many Americans alive today have had a Bush or Clinton as president? Didn’t we just ask that? Because there are 303 million Americans today, then 303 million Americans have had a Bush or Clinton as president. One hundred percent, off the top of my head.
The lede graf is a double negative. Maybe if we lift the canceled no’s, thusly: Forty percent of Americans have lived when there was a Bush or a Clinton in the White House.
Doesn’t help. Where does the quoted 116 million come from?
Maybe it’s another 40 percent. Because Sen. Clinton winning two terms is part of this important news story, we can set the time machine to Jan. 20, 2017. Does the article state or predict how many Americans will be alive then? No. The 36 years mentioned in the article backs up the time machine to January 1981 when George I became vice president, or 28 years from January 1989 when he was sworn in as president. I’m not sure when vice presidents began running the country.
Are we talking everyone who is living at any time between the years 1981 or 1989 and now, or 1981/89 and 2017? If we are using that as a sample, then what is the population that’s 60 percent?
If the population stays still — no one lives or dies until Jan. 21. 2017 — hey, you, don’t touch that, don’t eat that, all right, go run a lap then take a cold shower — then everyone who is older than 37 years old will remember … Jimmy Carter?
-40-
One reply on “Calculus Build Up”
At first blush, it’s the double negative in the lead that confuses you. Anyone born before 1981 lived in a time when there was not a Bush or Clinton in the White House. Everyone born since then has always had a Bush or Clinton in the White House (lead doesn’t say “running the country” or “president,” only “in the White House”) and hence has NEVER seen a day without one of the two power families in place. So, the statistic is the percentage of today’s Americans born on either side of 1981. The 60-40 split sounds about right, but without clear attribution we don’t know, and we can certainly wish it had been stated more directly.