The U.S. unemployment rate currently lies at 8.3 percent. Rounded down in casual conversation, you might say it is around 8 percent.
However, self-proclaimed Congressional numbers brainiac and Mitt Romney VP running mate Paul Ryan has taught us some brand new rounding techniques not taught to us in school; i.e., that to round down from 4:01:25 to "Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something" (as he claimed in an interview with Hugh Hewitt regarding his best Marathon Run) is a simple rounding error – perhaps something akin to rounding up when one should have rounded down:
If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight. – Runners World
The funny thing about this, however, is that while in grade school rounding 4:01:25 to 5:00:00 would likely have lead to a reminder that for numbers below 4:30:00 we round down instead of up, rounding down to anything under 4:00:00 (let alone something under 3:00:00) would only make your teacher think you had missed the point entirely.
So no! Ryan’s “mistake” can hardly be attributed to a simple rounding error. But his new math could prove quite useful all the same. For if we take that 8.3% unemployment rate and round it down using the method Ryan has taught us, we might get something like 6.8 percent – and doesn’t that sound a lot better than 8.3 percent! And who are we to argue about numbers with the Chairman of the House Budget committee?
But that still only about half cuts what he has taught us. For Ryan took more than 25% off his best time - meaning that we may as well round down to 5.8 percent. Wow! That’s a pretty good friggin’ number. Still not as good as the number Bush II started with in 2001 before ruining the economy, but a lot fairer than the 8.3 percent that the GOP is so committed to pinning on Obama – So I’ll take it. And if anyone asks, we simply explain that we learned how to round numbers from Ryan. Thanks Ryan!