There was a book out many years ago called “How To Lie With Statistics” written by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis. That book seems to have found its way into the speeches at the Democratic convention.

CNN reports that speakers have repeatedly stated that President Obama has added 4.5 million jobs to the economy during his time in office. That fact is true, but when you look at the entire picture, the importance of the number changes.

CNN reports:

While that is indeed a gain of 4.5 million, it’s only a net gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took office.

And total nonfarm payrolls, including government workers, are down from 133.6 million workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There’s been a net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.

Meanwhile, the jobs that have come back aren’t the same ones that were lost.

According to a study released last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, low-wage fields such as retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as higher-paid occupations.

The bottom line is simple–we are not better off today than we were four years ago–our personal wealth has declined and our status as a nation has declined. It is time for a course correction.