I’ve seen conflicting stories released months apart in order to confuse the public (in my opionon), but this is the first time I can remember the scam being contained in the same story.
The Labor Department released jobs data Friday, and it shows the the unemployment rate dropped slightly from the month before. Good news, right? Not so fast. They also reported that companies had a net of -20,000 jobs, even as the unemployment rate fell. How can that be? How can 20k be eliminated, but unemployment falls?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted a household survey, and found that there was an increase of 541,000 workers and temporary workers. That still ends up with a net loss of 20,000 jobs. Unless there was sudden mass entrepenerial success, these numbers just don’t add up, and if you’re confused by this, you’re not alone. Even economists are mystified.
“The drop in the unemployment rate was particularly surprising, as it was predicated on households reporting an increase in employment,” says Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “This could be capturing the self-employed doing slightly better than they had been, but it is still puzzling.”
It’s puzzling all right. In the meantime, Barack Obama will be able to cherry-pick the decrease in unemployment numbers and tout the success of his strategy. To the casual observer, he might actually seem to be making sense. To those that even casually crunch the numbers, something is just not right. In addition, the number of underemployed workers if mysteriously missing. Nobody seems to know what happened to them. But somehow the unemployment rate is down. Couple this with the fact that revised figures show that 1.2 million people more lost their jobs than previously thought, and the number of those on unemployment for more than 27 weeks is still rising, and those that have just given up are not even being counted, and the new 9.7% unemployment rate seems very suspicious, if not downright bogus.
Now we hear of a new jobs bill boondoggle that is supposed to supercharge this recovery. It’s not clear how well that would work, considering Obama’s new budget proprosal will hit those very same businesses with new taxes. Not the kind of environment you would expect for hiring. Well, where would the money from that bill go? Good question. Who would hire workers they could not afford with the specter of higher taxes on the way. If the health care bill were able to be passed, that would create an even more dire hiring dilemma for employers.None of this adds up, and again, the fact that this kind of data was released as a single report is even more confusing.
Well, I don’t know what kind of calculator you have, but mine just shows ERROR when I try to run the above numbers.
[...] New Job Numbers Just Don’t Add Up by [...]
Error, eh? You must not own the uber fabulous calculator that they use.
It’s the “Genie” calculator. It will give you any numbers you want.
First thing, they make these formulas too complicated. Whatever happened to just counting those who are seeking unemployment for the first time and those who are already using it? It’s nearly impossible for the average joe to figure out if they are right or not.
As for the current numbers and the unexplained drop in the unemployment rate, I don’t buy for a minute. The economy I am seeing is not one that is adding enough jobs to do that. Could it be just more smoke and mirrors?
Well LD, if even economists are ‘puzzled’ you have to wonder how valid these numbers are. I agree, the economy I see doesn’t reflect a drop in unemployment.