Reid's comment jumped out at us — 1.6 million jobs have already been lost because of the sequester? That seemed rather large.
The sequester, of course, is the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that were imposed March 1 when Republicans and Democrats could not reach agreement on a budget plan. The actual impact of the cuts has been in dispute, and we wrote a number of columns about fishy statistics that appeared to exaggerate the possible impact on the federal government. A follow-up review in June by The Washington Post found that claims of a breakdown in government services were, in fact, overblown. …
While the dust has not settled on the impact of the sequester on employment this year, the available evidence shows that Reid's claim that 1.6 million jobs already have been cut this year appears wildly off course.
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