Free Republic

When are 335,000 new jobs not 335,000 new jobs? When Washington makes them up and the media dutifully report them with all due breathlessness. ... The workweek, itself, contracted to 34.1 hours from 34.3 in December and 34.4 in November. This is the lowest number since March 2020 (the pandemic) and, before that, November 2008 (Great Recession)." Rosenberg Research calculated that, despite the job gains, total hours worked actually contracted .. In fact, the Household Survey — "the one the media ignores," as Barone put it — "showed up with a -31K headline jobs number, and a fall of -63K...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published a jobs report yesterday [DATA LINK] that has stunned the professional financial class. However, those who have followed the BLS data assemblies were laughing – not surprised. Eventually, if this continues, the BLS pretzel logic will start using terms like “eleventy.” Throughout 2022, the BLS modified the underlying data they used to assemble their jobs reporting. The latest release shows that 517,000 jobs were gained in the labor market, despite every other economic indicator showing we are in an economy of contraction. The question becomes, why the disconnect? There are two surveys that...

Illinois still lays claim to the worst recession recovery in the nation. According to the BLS household survey, there are still 216,000 fewer Illinoisans working than when the Great Recession began, the worst of any state and one of only 22 states that still have fewer people working than when the recession started. .... The business-establishment survey for the 2008-2014 period shows 114,000 fewer payroll jobs in Illinois than when the recession began, the second-worst record of any state, and one of only 15 states yet to break even on the recession. Only New Jersey is down more payroll jobs....

The economy gained 244,000 net jobs in April - the third straight month of solid gains. Yet the unemployment rate rose from 8.8 percent to 9 percent. How did that happen? It's because the government relies on two surveys for those figures, and they can diverge sharply from time to time. One is called the payroll survey. It asks companies and government agencies how many people they employ... The other is called the household survey. Government workers ask households about the employment status of adults living there. Those without jobs are asked whether they're looking for one. If they're not,...

The Labor Department released its September jobs report on Friday, and some wags are calling it the "whoops" report. The "whoops" is a reference to the upward revision of 810,000 previously undetected jobs that Labor now says were created in the U.S. economy in the 12 months through March 2006. So instead of 5.8 million new jobs over the past three years, the U.S. economy has created 6.6 million. That's a lot more than a rounding error, more than the number of workers in the entire state of New Hampshire. What's going on here? Our hypothesis has been that, due...

With crude oil near $50 a barrel, consumer confidence could be in for a big hit. James E. Glassman, senior United States economist at J. P. Morgan, thinks otherwise. "My gasoline station manager didn't know that the price of oil was near $50 a barrel," Mr. Glassman said. "He just knows what the oil company charges him for gasoline when the delivery truck pulls up each night." That price has been dropping. The national average price of a gallon of midgrade gasoline reached $2.155 in May. It has since dropped to $1.97, according to the Department of Energy. Consumer confidence...

A Problem with Payrolls? by Tim Kane, Ph.D., and Rea Hederman WebMemo #550 August 6, 2004 |  printer-friendly format | Here. We. Go. Again. The Department of Labor's July Employment Situation Report is out this morning, and the news is good. And not good. The unemployment rate stands at 5.5 percent in July, compared with 6.3 percent a year ago and an average of 5.8 percent in the 1990s. Fundamentally, the employment situation in America is solid, but the sluggishness of payroll job growth is stunning and out of line with a host of positive indicators. The strength of...

July was a poor month for job creation in the United States. July was an excellent month for job creation in the United States. That tale of two employment reports is true, and it continues a trend that has persisted for two and a half years. The discrepancies have made it possible for Republicans to herald a job recovery and for Democrats to deny one exists. Both sets of statistics were issued by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, but they come from very different surveys. One, the establishment survey, which questions 160,000 employers, paints the bleak picture. The other,...

John Kerry has based his claim of economic malfeasance by President Bush on the assertion that “three million jobs have been lost” on his watch. The original claim was 2.7 million jobs lost, but the quarrel here is not over the rounding up to an even three million. Ed McMahon has established over the last four decades that the Kerry claim is false. We’ll get back to McMahon in a moment. First a dose of statistics. The Department of Labor has a long and well-earned reputation for accuracy in its statistical analyses. But it has three different ways of measuring...

Go Figure By ROBERT BARRO The meager expansion of payroll employment by 21,000 in February highlights the continuing sluggishness of the labor market. This slow employment growth is surprising given the many signs of expansion, including strength in gross domestic product and investment, and the moderate unemployment rate. A full explanation for the small jobs rise is unavailable, but there are some hints. One point, based on the discrepancy between the payroll and household surveys, is that the payroll numbers may be underestimating the growth of employment. Since mid-2001, the household numbers have been far stronger. A recent report (March...

The Justice Department has quietly ended a program to measure criminals' use of drugs and forecast new drug epidemics, citing budget cuts by Congress. The program, the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, or ADAM, tests newly arrested criminals entering jail for narcotics violations in 35 cities. Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d, in the Reagan administration, started it in 1986. Law enforcement officials and criminal justice experts criticized ending the program, saying it was a useful tool in the battle against crime and drugs and was widely credited for tracking the rise and fall of the crack epidemic and detecting the...