Under Obama, Lying Media headlined U-3. Now it's suddenly "Not the best measure of jobs"

The Lying Mainstream Media is a joke.  Their lies are pitched to low-information voters who generally don't know up from down but want to "be part of the cool crowd."  And you can bet the Mainstream Media is eager to tell you what's cool.

With that said:  Each month the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics releases tons of economic data--including two main measures of unemployment, "U-3" and "U-6."  The two numbers are way different, but unless you're a political junkie or a numbers person you almost certainly don't know what those terms mean.

The mainstream media know that.  So if a Democrat is president they'll headline whichever term looks best for him, and vice-versa when a Republican is pres.

U-3 is the percentage of people in the labor force who are looking for work but can't find a job.  It's now 4.1%--the lowest in 17 years.  Thirteen states have record low unemployment rates, the lowest since the BLS began tracking state figures in 1976.

U-6 is U-3 plus the percentage of Americans who have stopped looking for work--which makes it several percentage points higher.
 When the unemployment rate fell under Bush, the media would always dismiss the significance of that figure, claiming that what really mattered was the "more realistic" U-6 number.

But under emperor Obama the media forgot all about U-6.  Never mentioned it, but only the more-generous, lower U-3 rate.

Well guess what?   Now that a Republican is president, U-6 is back, baby!

The link goes to a CNBC article from April, headlined

"The government reported a 4.5% unemployment rate, but here's the realistic number"

(When the article was published on April 7th the U-3 unemployment rate was 4.5%; it's now 4.1%.)

The article also included a video (low-info voters are far more likely to watch a vid than to read a technical article) titled "The headline unemployment rate might not be the best measure of jobs."

When the article was published (April 7th) Trump had been in office for two-and-a-half months.

Look how fast the media went from totally ignoring U-6 under Obama to claiming U-6 was the "realistic number" now that Trump was prez.   It took the Lying Media less than three months to rediscover U-6, and to claim it was suddenly far more important than U-3.

The author of the piece even included this memorable line:

A falling unemployment rate isn't always a good thing. 

That's right, citizen:  Even thought the media always trumpeted that falling unemployment was always a good thing under emperor Obama, they now tell us--literally, as shown above--that it's not always a good thing, eh?  And when does it suddenly become "not always a good thing"?  Why, when a Republican is president.

No bias here, citizen.  No "fake news."  No Lying Mainstream Media.  No sir.

The author of the piece then tweeted the takeaway line to all the sheep: 

The government reported a 4.5% unemployment rate, but here's the realistic number Nick Wells | @wellsangels
The headline unemployment rate might not be the best measure of jobs

Wait, under Obama U-3 was the vital number. Tell me, CNBC -- what's changed in just three months to make you feel U-6 is now more important?

One more thing:  If you search Google for "unemployment rate" under "news" you will struggle to find much mention of the 17-year record low unemployment rate.

Guess Google thinks that under a Republican, record low unemployment is no longer a big deal.

H/T Ace