We’ve all seen the ad:
“Announcer: Times are tough. So you work overtime to make ends meet. Then you find out George Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay for 8 million workers. Two million jobs lost. Jobs going overseas. And now, no overtime pay.
When it comes to choosing between corporate values and family values, face it, George Bush is not on our side.”
Trouble is, as usual the Democrats are basing their arguments on a flat-out lie.
Says FactCheck.org [1]:
The 8-million figure (hotly denied by the Bush administration, of course) comes from a study by the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute.
The ad misquotes the study, however. What the study actually says is that an estimated 8 million would lose the legal right to premium overtime rates should they work more than 40 hours per week. It does not say they would actually lose pay as the ad says. In fact, the 8-million figure is inflated by many part-time workers who never get overtime work, or overtime pay, even though they now have the right to it.