LIES, DAMN LIES, AND UNEMPLOYMENT STATISTICS
The drop in unemployment the Obama Administration reported for January is totally phony. Real, unweighted data showed an increase from 9.1% to 9.8% in joblessness rather than a cut in the highly weighted figure from 9.4% to 9.0%.
Put those weighted numbers on a diet!
Economist Jim Fitzgibbon, head of the Highlander Fund, calls the report “worthless” noting that “the entire report is seasonally adjusted to be positive while the non-seasonally adjusted data is just awful.”
While the seasonally adjusted jobless rate dropped from 9.8% in November to 9.0% now, the non-adjusted data went from 9.1% in November to 9.8% now – the exact reverse!
Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the real data:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm
Fitzgibbon calls the entire report a “statistical mirage.”
And, of course, Obama “achieved” the drop in the unemployment rate not by reducing the numerator (the number of jobless) but by cutting the denominator (the total workforce). 500,000 Americans despaired of ever getting a job and left the workforce, bringing the jobless rate down.
Fitzgibbon reports that the net loss of jobs continues to this day with 8,750,000 eliminated rather than the 8,363,000 the Administration reports. “Without aggressively positive seasonal adjustments for January, 2011 the +39,000 payroll increase would have been closer to a loss of -52,000.”
Obama has had two raging successes in his term:
1. He has slashed unemployment by persuading millions to give up hope and leave the labor force; and
2. He has cut illegal immigration by casting the United States into a permanent job shortage.
Some achievements!
 |
