Unemployment DOWN, over 100,000 jobs added! Oh, wait...
If you're a political critic you probably already know that the "official" unemployment reported by the gummint and released Friday fell a tenth of a percent, from 9.2 to 9.1 percent as businesses added 117,000 jobs last month.
Woohoo! Right?
Ah, not quite. Turns out the number of Americans actually working last month fell by 38,000.
Of course you knew that, since it was one of the key figures included in every media report on the employment picture.
What? You never heard that 38,000 fewer people were employed last month??
Yeah, well...that would be because almost no MSM outfit saw fit to report it. They stayed with the "117,000 NEW jobs!" and "unemployment DOWN!" Because they aren't biased in favor of Obozo at all.
You'd think that if the economy added jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped, more people would be working, right? So what's up?
Would you believe, the gummint deliberately fudges the numbers?
You think I'm kidding, but not so: Turns out the Bureau of Labor Statistics removes people from the "unemployed" classification if they've been out of work for more than two years or so. That is, they're still most certainly unemployed but simply aren't counted in the total any longer.
If that's not a blatant fudge I can't imagine what would qualify better.
To be fair, this has been the policy for many years. It's just that before the current recession the gummint would only pay unemployed people for 40 weeks or so, and most managed to find a job by the end of that period.
But as part of the recover acts, congress changed the law to keep federal u/e bennies coming for 99 weeks (and Obozo just said he want to increase even that number). Once you're out of the workforce that long, coming back in in the same field is quite a bit more difficult. So the numbers of people dropping off the U/E rolls is substantial.
And sure enough, a component of the unemployment statistics called the Household Survey shows that just since March, the U.S. has lost more than 900,000 full-time jobs.
On the positive side, adding 117,000 jobs in July is much better than the dismal showings of May and June. So even if fewer people are employed, at least we may be getting closer to stopping the fall.
If you believe 'em, that is.
Woohoo! Right?
Ah, not quite. Turns out the number of Americans actually working last month fell by 38,000.
Of course you knew that, since it was one of the key figures included in every media report on the employment picture.
What? You never heard that 38,000 fewer people were employed last month??
Yeah, well...that would be because almost no MSM outfit saw fit to report it. They stayed with the "117,000 NEW jobs!" and "unemployment DOWN!" Because they aren't biased in favor of Obozo at all.
You'd think that if the economy added jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped, more people would be working, right? So what's up?
Would you believe, the gummint deliberately fudges the numbers?
You think I'm kidding, but not so: Turns out the Bureau of Labor Statistics removes people from the "unemployed" classification if they've been out of work for more than two years or so. That is, they're still most certainly unemployed but simply aren't counted in the total any longer.
If that's not a blatant fudge I can't imagine what would qualify better.
To be fair, this has been the policy for many years. It's just that before the current recession the gummint would only pay unemployed people for 40 weeks or so, and most managed to find a job by the end of that period.
But as part of the recover acts, congress changed the law to keep federal u/e bennies coming for 99 weeks (and Obozo just said he want to increase even that number). Once you're out of the workforce that long, coming back in in the same field is quite a bit more difficult. So the numbers of people dropping off the U/E rolls is substantial.
And sure enough, a component of the unemployment statistics called the Household Survey shows that just since March, the U.S. has lost more than 900,000 full-time jobs.
On the positive side, adding 117,000 jobs in July is much better than the dismal showings of May and June. So even if fewer people are employed, at least we may be getting closer to stopping the fall.
If you believe 'em, that is.
posted by SF at
4:50 PM
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