Media Twist Good Economy Into Bad News
Thursday, October 26, 2006

Since Election Day 2004, the U.S. economy has added more than 3 million new jobs. The unemployment rate dropped from a healthy 5.5% to an even more impressive 4.6%. Even with energy prices gyrating, the Consumer Price Index shows inflation at a controlled annual rate of 3.4% for both 2005 and the first nine months of 2006. Since the fall of 2004, the overall size of the U.S. economy (GDP) has increased by more than $1.3 trillion — new wealth that exceeds the total size of the Russian, Saudi Arabian and Hong Kong economies combined.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released October 9 found nearly a fourth of Americans (23%) said the economy will be the "single most important" issue for them on Election Day, nearly twice as many as said Iraq was their most important voting issue (12%). But the same poll also found pessimism: 53% said the economy was "not so good" or "poor," vs. 47% who said it was "good" or "excellent." the rest