Letter: Commentary’s use of poll numbers was misleading

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Mark Twain once said there were three kinds of lies: “lies, damn lies and statistics.” The recent Bloomburg commentary by Nia-Malika Henderson provides an excellent example of the latter (“Trump finally talked affordability, but was it convincing,” The Herald, Feb. 26. To quote from the opinion article, “About 7 in 10 say the economy is only ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ as opposed to ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ according to the Pew Research Center.”

Anyone with even a smattering of critical thinking skills might wonder why the tallies for “fair” and “poor” were clumped together. If as few as 30 percent of the respondents in the Pew poll rated the economy as “fair,” that would have painted an entirely different picture than the one the Bloomburg writer intended. Is it any wonder that Americans view print and other media with such low ratings of trust?

Mark Parker

Snohomish

Editor’s note: Here’s the full breakdown of the Pew Research Center results for the question, “How would you rate economic conditions in this country today?”: Excellent, 3%; Good, 25%; Only Fair, 42%; Poor, 30%. Pew’s own summary of the results combines the numbers for fair/poor and excellent/good, which is what the author used in her commentary.