More Proof You Should Be Skeptical of Statistics...

The following is a quote from an article about Jim Abbott:

Nearly 50 million Americans have disabilities, and according to the Department of Labor, two out of every three Americans with disabilities are unemployed.

Quite simply, this is highly misleading.

If the above statistics are both true and both refer to the same group of people, simple mathematics dictates that approximately 33 million Americans are unemployed. I'm not sure what the number of employment-eligible people is in the United States, but even if we place it generously high at 200 million, that means the unemployment rate in this country is near....

16.5%.

Even here is Michigan, where we have the highest unemployment of any state in the nation...it's only about 9%. And according to today's report, the national rate is at 6.1%.

Conclusions:

• One or both of the above statistics are wrong.
• People should be careful to verify what they read.