ALG examines the Bureau of Labor Statistics report for April and finds some troubling dissonance:
[…] bad news in the employment report was overshadowed by the contradictory claim in the report that 244,000 new private sector jobs were created by the economy in April.
While I wish the economy had grown by almost a quarter of a million jobs, it is hard to reconcile this number with the reality of the rest of this and other U.S. Labor Department reports.
For instance, the number of people that BLS reports as being employed in April 2011 dropped by 190,000, a number that is irreconcilable with the claimed 244,000 new jobs created claim.
Also, the weekly U.S. Labor Department report on new Unemployment Insurance Claims that closed out the month of April showed that unemployment was accelerating through the month.
To quote the Labor Department’s May 5th press release, “In the week ending April 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 474,000 [this was revised upward to 478,000}, an increase of 43,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 431,000. The 4-week moving average [virtually all of April] was 4 31,250, an increase of 22,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 409,000.”
To put the new Unemployment Insurance Claims data into perspective, when the economy was creating jobs in the mid-2000’s, seasonally adjusted new UI claims did not run above 400,000 in a week a single time in the almost five years between September 13, 2003 and July 19, 2008. During this same time period the unemployment rate went from 6.1 down to a low of 4.4 and back up to 5.6 percent.
The point of all these numbers and reports is that the outlier in the April unemployment report is the claim that the economy created 244,000 jobs. When virtually every other data point is going in one direction, and one data point in another, the prudent person questions the validity of the number that doesn’t fit. In this case, unfortunately, the new job creation number sticks out like a sore thumb.
The most compelling proof of all is in our neighborhoods, where the Gallup polling organization reports that nearly one in five is “underemployed.”
This is hardly the robust scenario that a reasonable Keynesian economist would expect after both a massive injection of fiscal stimulus topped by almost unprecedented monetary intervention in the economy by the Federal Reserve.
Well, to be fair, if Keynesian economists had the ability to accurately predict how their fiscal ideas would play out in a complex capitalist system, most of them wouldn’t be Keynesian economists.
And the ones who would? Know exactly how their ideas would play out. And to their way of thinking, the new normal — high unemployment and dependency yielding a permanent social welfare state with a large centralized nannystate government, which promises to step in and make things better for their poor charges — is a feature, not a bug.
Are you saying that they are lying to us? I’m shocked. Shocked!
If I weren’t seeing and reading all this with my own eyes (as opposed to using someone else’s eyes I guess) I would think that everything that’s going on is a work of fiction laughably describing some hack writer’s vision of a dystopic government. It would be nearly unbelievable to read, and the movie version would be universally panned. The best it could hope for would be to become a cult classic.
The facts are there to consume, and are ignored, in an age where information is available in seconds. I despair.
Keep in mind that 62000 of the jobs that were added in April came courtesy of McDonald’s.
Reagan had his misery index, the rates of inflation, unemployment, and interest, which wiped out Carter. To stop that kind of nonsense for carter II, they address high interest by setting it artificially low and paying off the banks, inflation by taking out energy and food costs from the equation, and unemployment with creative accounting practices.
Viola! Low misery index!
Lies, damned lies, statisics, and the BLS…
Bureau of necessary Lies and Statistics. How in the world can we have any confidence in an agency who’s employment “estimates” have almost universally been revised lower, at the same time their “unemployment” measures have consistently been revised higher.
I mean, it’s almost like they want us to think that there’s a strong recovery underway.
And I know I’m beating a dead horse and all, but whatever happened to the people that were foaming at the mouth regarding what they characterized to be a “jobless recovery!”, one where the widely agreed upon unemployment rate was around 6%, now when the number of people in the workforce is at a 30 year low and unemployment is still around 9%.
Or higher, if the same metrics from the 70s and 80s were employed…
I wonder why none of them seem to be concerned?
“I wonder why none of them seem to be concerned?”
A leech may be concerned the host is drying up, but he keeps sucking anyway.
Maybe they are just reclassing folks who have been on the dole long enough as being employed as Professional Democrat Voters.
Severely OT:
Sitting in the airport watching CNN and noticing that an orange dress is a terrible choice for a bottle blonde with a fresh spray tan.
…a reasonable Keynesian economist…
Pop quiz! Name three reasonable Keynesian economists.
1) __________________
2) __________________
3) __________________
This is an open-book quiz, so feel free to consult your notes. Please place your answers on my desk before the end of class, and make sure to write your name at the top.
1. Paul Krugman
2. Paul Krugman
3. Paul Krugman
Darth, correct on the “Keynesian economist” part…only. Heh.
I want partial credit. :P