Beck Repeats Shoddy Stats on Obama Cabinet

Glenn Beck’s claim that “under 10%” of Barack Obama’s cabinet appointees have “any experience in the private sector” turns out to be a bad statistic pulled from the internet. The tidbit originated in a study from JPMorgan Private Bank CIO Michael Cembalest, PolitiFact reports. Cembalest looked at nine posts he thought likely to contain execs and concluded that less than 10% of Obama’s appointees were. A chart accompanying the report has gone viral in conservative circles online.

But Politifact found that, in reality, a full third of those secretaries have significant corporate or business experience, and three others had legal experience in the private sector. Expand the discussion beyond those nine posts, and the administration’s numbers improve more. Cemblast says it’s “frightening” that the chart—from which the Fox host’s numbers probably come—has spread without context, and calls his study “100% subjective.” (More Glenn Beck stories.)