Fact Checker: Iowa GOP economic claims

Introduction

'More than 150,000 jobs have been created in just over three years, more Iowans are working than at any point in Iowa's history and Johnson County has seen a 21.7 percent drop in unemployment.'

Source of claim

Republican Party of Iowa

Analysis

In a direct mailing to Johnson County voters, the Republican Party of Iowa made several claims about the Iowa economy under Gov. Terry Branstad.

Claim 1: 'More than 150,000 jobs have been created in just over three years.'

The Iowa GOP did not respond to requests seeking the source of these claims, but when Branstad made a similar claim in January, Spokesman Jimmy Centers said the numbers came from Iowa Workforce Development's count of gross jobs created.

Gross jobs created isn't a measure used by economists because it doesn't take into account jobs eliminated during the same time period. That would be like counting babies born and saying Iowa's population had grown by that amount without subtracting the number of people who died.

Net growth subtracts the number of lost jobs from the number of new jobs. Iowa saw a net job growth of 63,000 between September 2011 and September 2014, according to Workforce Development's seasonally-adjusted numbers.

This claim's accuracy gets an F.

Claim 2: 'More Iowans are working than at any other point in Iowa's history.'

Iowa's nonfarm employment has been at record levels for quite a while and continues to make gains each month, Workforce Development reports. So the 1,556,200 employed in September 2014 is indeed a high point.

This claim gets an A.

Claim 3: 'Johnson County has seen a 21.7 percent drop in unemployment.'

From September 2011 to September 2014, Johnson County's unemployment (not seasonally adjusted) went from 3,900 people to 2,600 people. This is a decline of nearly 32 percent.

This improvement didn't happen in a vacuum, Iowa State University Economist David Swenson said.

The number of out-of-work people in Iowa overall declined by 23 over the same three-year period, using seasonally-adjusted numbers from Iowa Workforce Development. Unemployment across the United States declined by 33.6 percent from September 2011 to September 2014, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Another A.

Conclusion

The Iowa GOP mailing highlights economic improvements during Branstad's most recent term in office. Two of the three claims are true, although they lack some statewide and national context. The claim about jobs created is false.

Averaging out those scores, we give the overall ad a B for truthfulness.

Sources

Iowa Workforce Development employment (click seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment): http://www.iowaworkforce.org/lmi/laborforce/

County-specific unemployment: http://www.iowaworkforce.org/lmi/laborforce/#counties

BLS September 2011: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_10072011.pdf

BLS report September 2014: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf