The Job Market Still Stinks
After the release of Friday’s employment report showing that the nation’s unemployment rate had dropped below 8% in September for the first time in 44 months, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis appeared on CNBC, claiming to feel “insulted” by those who believe that its numbers were conveniently cooked for President Obama’s electoral advantage. She further asserted: “We have a very professional civil service organization (with) … top economists. … These are — these are our best-trained and best-skilled individuals.”
With the exception of at least two economists who have donated to political campaigns (but who don’t appear to have been in positions to influence the numbers), Solis appears to be mostly right about the professionalism at her department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those who toil there should feel insulted at how Solis and whoever else is responsible chose to present the information in September’s Employment Situation Summary.
The primary bone of contention is the September increase of 873,000, according to the BLS’s Household Survey (based on interviews and surveys of heads of households), in the number of people employed. That figure made it into the summary’s narrative, and was explained as follows:
Total employment rose by 873,000 in September, following 3 months of little change.
This was a brazen attempt to make a wildly fluctuating and relatively unimportant figure in a survey where the primary mission is to estimate the percentage of people who are not employed seem more important than the mediocre seasonally adjusted September job additions of 114,000 in the Establishment Survey of employers. I reviewed this year’s first eight Employment Situation Summaries; the Household Survey’s specific employment pickup or loss was never mentioned in any of them.
One could argue that the September increase was too big to ignore and had to be cited to address inevitable questions. If so, then the report should have noted the figure’s historically wild fluctuations and relative insignificance instead of blandly telling readers about three previous months of alleged “little change” — an assertion which was itself quite deceptive, especially when comparing the Household Survey’s results for the past seven months to the Establishment Survey:
While the Establishment Survey has been showing job growth plodding along at a mostly tepid pace, adding an average of 111,000 jobs a month during the past seven months, the Household Survey’s total employment figure has seen month-to-month differences varying from the Establishment Survey by several hundred thousand in both directions. That’s hardly “little change,” Hilda.
Of course, the press couldn’t resist reporting the highly unreliable figure. It made it into the second paragraph at the Associated Press, aka the Administration’s Press, while the Establishment Survey result got mentioned in paragraph 3. The New York Times saved the Household Survey’s 873,000 employment growth figure for a later paragraph, but implausibly claimed that “its credibility was bolstered by an unexpectedly robust rise in consumer confidence.” The confidence reference was to a Gallup poll which, as the Times acknowledged, attributed its rise “almost entirely to increased optimism among Democrats.” In other words, confidence is up because many Obama supporters recognize a duty to say that they’re confident even if they’re not.
To the AP’s credit, it noticed, though not until the 24th paragraph of its report, that most of the Household Survey’s employment pickup was in an unimpressive area: “582,000 more people reported that they were working part-time last month but wanted full-time jobs … the biggest increase in so-called underemployed Americans since February 2009.” This is exactly the kind of result Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney was thinking of when he said on Friday: “This is not what a real recovery looks like.”
We haven’t seen what a real recovery looks like since the recession as officially defined ended 39 long months ago. Despite September’s unemployment rate drop:
- That rate has been 7.8% or higher during every single month of Obama’s term, something not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal extended the Great Depression for eight dreadful years.
- During Obama’s first and hopefully sole presidential term, seasonally adjusted full-time employment reported in the Household Survey has contracted — by 604,000 through September. Meanwhile, part-time employment has ballooned by over 1.5 million.
- In the Establishment Survey, even after considering a pending and preliminary adjustment to total employment of an estimated 386,000 for the 12 months ended in March, the nation’s economy has only added 325,000 jobs since Obama took office. The increase in the number of jobs at temporary help services during that time (570,000 before the pending adjustment) has been far greater.
- In the “What have you done for us lately?” department, seasonally adjusted job growth per the Establishment Survey has averaged only 106,000 per month during the past six months, while monthly private-sector job additions in August and September averaged only 100,000.
- Meanwhile, the Household Survey tells us that every single job added and then some during the past six months (819,000) has been part-time, while full-time employment has dropped by 64,000. Taxmageddon and ObamaCare are already exacting a heavy price.
As to the conspiracy theories, to believe them you’d have to buy into the idea that the BLS’s compilers deliberately showed the contractions seen above in Household Survey employment in July and August, allowing President Obama to continue to get hammered during all of August and September over his administration’s then-unbroken streak of 43 months of 8%-plus unemployment, and then opened the floodgates on October 5, just 32 days before the election — after the travesty of early voting has already begun in some states — to finally get the rate below 8%. Really?
That said, it’s hard to totally blame those who see a conspiracy, simply because this administration, by far the most callously and pervasively dishonest in my lifetime, has given critics so much fodder in so many other areas. To name just a few:
- Its lethal, reality-denying decision-making in Libya and the Middle East, leading it to ramp down and deny adequate security protection to Americans in dangerous situations when it clearly should have been increased.
- Its craven yet still unadmitted willingness to flood Mexico with guns which could only be “traced” after their murderous use.
- Its open political favoritism in “green jobs”-related loans and grants.
- Finally, in a brazen repeat of what occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign, the president’s campaign has again “chosen not to use AVS (Address Verification System) in screening contributions made by credit card,” potentially (i.e., more than likely) “accepting contributions from phony names or accepting contributions from foreigners, both of which are illegal.”
This horror show on virtually all fronts can’t end soon enough.
More: Tea Party Congresswoman: Labor Stats Speak for Themselves, Cooked or Not
Anyone who has not lived and worked under the Chicago Machine political cesspool, can haughtily dismiss suspicions of corruption, graft, fraud and abuse.
In The Lawless Presidency there has hardly been a moment where a form of corruption, graft, fraud and abuse wasn’t in full conspiracy.
While the co-conspiratorial Media has completely abandoned any semblance of dignity, honor, ethics, morals or honesty. No longer merely satisfied with distorting the news and presenting Propaganda and Lies via acts of omission, they openly forge documents, alter tapes, photoshop pictures, stage events, in order to effectuate a leftist outcome that would likely NEVER take place if they told the truth.
To suggest that the ONLY WAY that the Chicago Machine could manipulate the phony jobs “improvement” or to artificially drop the “unemployment” number to a level that would “confuse the news” and have their Propaganda and Lies Ministry push a wholly false story…is not merely myopic, it’s naive and dangerous.
They don’t need to “cook the number counting” if they can cook the number reporting.
And, the argument that they found a way to do it in September but not earlier, so therefore it’s not possible they are doing it at all, isn’t very convincing.
This is like saying that point shaving never occurred because the scorekeeper kept an accurate account, therefore the refs and players must be clean. Census takers contact households and then report numbers to the number counters. To suggest that NOTHING could have happened to create a drop more than DOUBLE any other movement, no matter how volatile…is simply head scratchingly obtuse.
In the Lawless Presidency far worse has already taken place. In the Chicago Machine there are thousands of corrupt acts far worse replete in the record. Bribed judges in Greylord. Massive voter fraud. Kickbacks, payoffs, patronage favors, …and in employment, complete corruption.
In The Lawless and Unvetted Presidency, it would be the norm and not the aberration if corruption was the answer behind how the number came to be…and the Propaganda and Lies Ministry’s co-conspiracy is the answer as to how it is being used…to destroy the truth we need to self-govern this land of ours.
I’m happy to represent the voice of loyal opposition to those who YET AGAIN, diminish the fight against crushing Propaganda and Lies. Let me wear the tinfoil hat and absorb the scoffing and ridicule from purportedly “our side”.
I know better. I was there when that corruption was in full rage in Chicago and fought it there as well, swimming against the tide of the cesspool. I know firsthand that some of it was obvious and some of it was clever and subtle. And, never again was I so arrogant as to suggest that it couldn’t happen in a way that wasn’t recognized immediately. I hope to never be that arrogant again. Only to have the strength to remain vigilant in fighting against it. And to defend those on my side who say when something stinks to high heaven, that they are not deluded or silly to look for the source of the stench.
Where is your prove, cite your sources, otherwise your inflammatory rhetoric is the cesspool you speak of so fondly
My prove?
1)Go to Google
2)Look up Greylord
3)Try to get a job with the City of Chicago or Cook County without a Democratic “sponsor”
4)Name a Republican mayor of Chicago in the last 50 years or a Republican alderman or a Republican committeeman
5)Ask any Chicagoan
6)Read old Mike Royko columns
You clearly have not a clue. Get one.
Guess what? Liars surround themselves with liars, and few lie better – and more frequently – than the Liar-in-Chief.
As to the sudden turnaround of ‘jobs created’, there are more reasons to believe that this is another damnable lie, rather than the sudden turnaround of an economy in recovery, heretofore, falling off the fiscal cliff! Labor Sec Solis is working – calculator in hand – with Obama’s thugs in suits to cook the books,hoping to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Over time, this will be proven to be another damnable lie, courtesy of the radicals in Washington.
Regardless, a regime whose sole achievement is pulling the wool over half the population, can hardly be trusted with so called magical numbers, appearing right before the election, and immediately after his debate disaster!
Coincidence? Hardly.
When thugs in suits – or dresses – hold the reins of power, all manner of perfidy is committed – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/07/when-authentic-revolutionaries-hold-the-reins-of-american-power-centers-via-the-most-radical-regime-in-u-s-history-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Per the Household Survey A-1 we added 873,000 jobs. However according to A-8 the number of Part-Time jobs increased 237,000 thus making it a F/T job +636,000.
When you observe the Non-Seasonally Adjusted figure we gained 3,021,000 P/T jobs in September and gained 775,000 total jobs thus a lOSS of 2,246,000 FULL TIME JOBS.
Please wake all of you so-called political financial writers and pundits and read the spreadsheets from the BLS.
How can we ignore a loss of 2.5 million full-time jobs in September.
A-9 shows a not seasonally adjusted FT employment drop of 536,000. In 2011 and 2010, the raw FT employment drops were 1.3 million and 1.1 million, respectively.
My numbers were off by 1mil. A-8 NSA Aug to Sep Total Jobs +775K, Total P/T jobs
increased 2,021,000 then F/T jobs had to drop 1,246,000.
A-8 NSA stats show 27,655,000 P/T jobs and A-9 show 27,080,000 a discrepancy of 575,000 jobs.
The Seasonally Adjusted numbers change from year to year. This report is totally bogus and is actually a poll.
High unemployment is the inevitable result of this vision of a state directed, post-industrial Green Economy that will be the focus of the Second Term. If only President Obama can gain one so fudging the results is an acceptable tactic given the primacy of Intentions and Goals.
The real economic, social, and political Transformation and the post-GDP economy with a collectivist, communitarian focus is spelled out quite specifically in the ed reform implementation documents. I have been immersed in it for months and actually explained to day how it is aiming at a more communal, non-market exchange, no Division of Labor, self-sufficient existence. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/you-mean-i-cant-teach-because-the-economy-should-not-grow/ is where I explained this US/UN beyond GDP global economic vision a few months ago.
This Administration is pursuing a fantasy future at our expense. One with a tragic past. We are not going to get to their fantastic global Bioregional vision but in chasing after it we are destroying everything that made this country great and created mass prosperity in the first place. For the first time in the history of the world. This return to primitivism is always based on a misunderstanding and ignorance of the actual history of what is being advocated for.
Those of use who really are Students of History and Economics have to speak up now.
It’s difficult to totally blame…. ????
Excuse me. If people who don’t believe this administration’s numbers cry foul such as that business “dummy” former CEO of GE Jack Welch, I’m listening. I’m a scientist, not an economist, but find myself totally in agreement with several of the economists who have said these numbers are counter-intuitive (fancy speak for make no sense).
Occam’s Razor in this case is that the fellows who have routinely lied every single month only to have their numbers adjusted upwards (always in the same direction, quelle surprise) will need a much larger adjustment in a few months. In science we call it a measurement bias if error always falls on the same side of the true number. Therefore a measurement bias existed prior to this months numbers and for the same reasons, but having been allowed to present cooked numbers previously with impunity, the whole stew went into the pot this time.
For my part, it’s hard not to totally blame those who don’t/can’t/won’t see a problem here as being part of the problem. It is statistically impossible to derive these numbers consistently in error in the same direction unless the bias is a feature not a bug.
Given this administration’s known habits of stonewalling, spinning, and lying outright, I consider the terms “feature” and “bug” to not be necessarily exclusive. — One man’s bug is another’s feature, and in some ways the feature, useful to liars, could help them to wiggle out when found out: “Sorry, we’re good, but this time a ‘bug’ got the better of us. So sorry.” — The “paradox” would be a function of its premises. IOW, “figures don’t lie, but liars sure know how to figure.”
For a time when Bush was president the household number was on a clear improving trajectory. The payroll survey was week but for months the household number improved. The only way one, other than a BLS wonk follower, knew that was to watch Kudlow. In the MSM it was verbotten to mention it.
“I reviewed this year’s first eight Employment Situation Summaries; the Household Survey’s specific employment pickup or loss was never mentioned in any of them.”
I’ve been following the employment numbers and your ongoing analyses with great interest. As a result, the sudden emphasis on a heretofore “ignored” indicator was both predictable and suspicious.
As you noted, Taxmaggedon and ObamaCare continue to shape hiring decisions. Throughout the so-called “recovery,” businesses have avoided hiring full-time employees, choosing part-time and temporary solutions instead.
These jobs can and will be shed at the first sign of another down turn. When that happens, we need to remember, yes, Obama did build that.
With the huge job deficit — the huge pool of over 30 million unemployed and “discouraged” and under-employed (people unable to get employment in fields for which they prepared at great effort and expense and millions of whom worked in with dedication for years) — if there are fewer than about 160,000 net new jobs per month then the job markets are still getting worse, more and more and more people will be unemployed and under-employed for longer and longer.
If there are fewer than 250,000 net new jobs per month — month after month after month — it could take over 20 years for US job markets to fully recover.
The really scary part is that nothing in Obummer’s nor in Mitt’s declared proposals will correct the distortions of US job markets created by federal government statutes and regulations over the last 60 years which have been making those job markets dysfunctional. Both favor bringing in more cheap, young, pliant foreign labor with flexible ethics. Both favor lax enforcement against those illegally entering the USA and those over-staying visas.
graphs of job market and econ data from BLS, State Department, Education…:
http://www.kermitrose.com/jgoEconData.html
Labor statistics seem to be unreliable, figures are always revised again and again.
Some people must have been playing with numbers, albeit in a less-than-smart way. (vzc1943)