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A couple weeks ago, this column analyzed the inflation rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and concluded that you should rely on your common sense when the government reports questionable statistics. If they don’t make sense based on what you see, experience, and hear from your friends, then they’re probably wrong. Last week’s unemployment number – which decreased to a still-dismal 7.8% – should not only make no sense to you, but should have never made sense to the BLS and therefore should never have been issued. So am I just popping off or is there a...

Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kan.-based company run by the billionaire Koch brothers, sent a voter information packet to 45,000 employees of its Georgia Pacific subsidiary earlier this month. In it was a letter, dated Oct. 1, from Koch Industries president Dave Robertson implicitly warning that "many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences" of voting for President Obama and other Democrats in the 2012 elections, a list of conservative candidates the company's political action committee endorses and a pair of editorials: one, by David Koch, supporting Mitt Romney, and the other, by Charles Koch,...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported last Friday that 114,000 new jobs were created last month, according to its Establishment Survey of business payrolls that has been emphasized by the Obama Administration. That is pitifully weak, especially for what is supposed to be the fourth year of a recovery (the National Bureau of Economic Research scored the recession as officially over in June, 2009). As economist John Lott noted at FoxNews.com on October 5, the working age population grew by 206,000 last month. With two-thirds of those working as would be expected during a normal recovery, 138,000 new jobs...

President Barack Obama is hailing the rebound of the U.S. auto industry, pointing to progress since his administration rescued General Motors and Chrysler.

So first time claims for Unemployment Insurance dropped by 30,000 last week, as reported yesterday??? Oh, the numbers for "one large State" were omitted??? Oh, the Wall Street Journal reported that State was Kalifornia??? Well if you go to the URL above, you will be taken to the California Employment Development Department "Quick Statistics" chart, scroll down to the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Statistics section. Then click on the "Initial Claims Filed" link. (Im sorry to say I've forgotten how to get the PDF into the body of this thread) I went back 13 years (1999) and added the claims filed...

Fox Business Network reported on Thursday that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) plans to hold hearings on the September jobs numbers, which showed the unemployment rate had fallen to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent.

How Stupid Do They Think We Are? The BLS reported last Friday that the economy in September created all of 114,000 net new jobs, just 104,000 in the private sector. To give you some context for how great that is, the working age population increased by 206,000 in September. With a labor force participation rate normal for the fourth year of a recovery (where we are right now), just keeping pace with that population growth would require 138,000 new jobs, before we can even start to reduce the unemployment rate. Indeed, since Obama became President, the working age population has...

Earlier this morning, the Department of Labor reported that initial jobless claims plunged to 339K from 369K a week ago.Economists were looking for a reading of 370k.Immediately, Twitter exploded with tweets mocking Jack Welch, who claimed last week's jobs report was fixed to artificially drop the September unemployment rate to 7.8 percent from 8.1 percent in August.Coincidentally, cryptic messages came through from Bloomberg and the WSJ that raised doubts about today's report. From Bloomberg:

We've Gotten To The Bottom Of The Mysterious Jobless Claims Report! Henry BlodgetOct. 11, 2012, 12:29 PM RealtyTrac After this morning's surprisingly positive jobless claims number was released, three things happened: 1.Lots of people felt better about the economy 2.Democrats cheered because they thought the number would help Obama 3.Republicans seized on confusing reports that the numbers had "excluded claims from one large state" (probably California) and blasted the number as wrong and misleading. Since then, the argument has raged on, and there have been a variety of different reports and interpretations. Well, we're glad to say that we've finally...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics have another election present for President Obama: initial jobless claims dropped to their lowest point since 2008. Initial jobless claims fell to 339k and an upwardly revised (of course) figure of 369k from the previous week. This nosedive in initial jobless claims is consistent with the BLS’ “Hail Mary!” jobs report released last week where 873k jobs appeared as if President Obama prayed at Lourdes for a miracle. On the other hand, initial jobless claims ROSE by 26k to 327k on a non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) basis. It appears that consumers aren’t buying it. The Bloomberg...

State officials say they have found more than 1,100 inmates who they believe improperly collected unemployment benefits totaling more than $2 million while jailed in Illinois sometime in about the last year. One Cook County inmate collected almost $43,000, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security, though most were paid far less. Nearly all of the fraud occurred in mid-2012 from county jails across the state.

“One omission by one state–you wouldn’t think it would be a big deal, but in this case it drove the number down by 10%,” said analyst Stephen Stanley with Pierpont Securities. Economists are speculating the state could be California, the most populous state in the nation. “It was likely a state with a large population and we suspect that it was California based on the occasional massive swings that have occurred in its claims data in the past,” said Daniel Silver, an economist with JPMorgan, in a note. “In short, this reading is worthless in terms of informing on the...

“One omission by one state–you wouldn’t think it would be a big deal, but in this case it drove the number down by 10%,” said analyst Stephen Stanley with Pierpont Securities. Economists are speculating the state could be California, the most populous state in the nation. “It was likely a state with a large population and we suspect that it was California based on the occasional massive swings that have occurred in its claims data in the past,” said Daniel Silver, an economist with JPMorgan, in a note. “In short, this reading is worthless in terms of informing on the...

This is just getting stupid. After expectations of a rebound in initial claims from 367K last week (naturally revised higher to 369K), to 370K (with the lowest of all sellside expectations at 355K), the past week mysteriously, yet so very unsurprisingly in the aftermath of the fudged BLS unemployment number, saw claims tumble to a number that is so ridiculous not even CNBC's Steve Liesman bothered defending it, or 339K. Ironically, not even the Labor Department is defending it: it said that "one large state didn't report some quarterly figures." Great, but what was reported was a headline grabbing number...

Job openings in the U.S. dropped for a second straight month in August, indicating companies are reluctant to beef up payrolls through year-end without faster economic growth. The number of positions waiting to be filled fell by 32,000 to 3.561 million from a revised 3.593 million the prior month that was less than previously estimated, the Labor Department said today in a statement. Hiring increased at the same time firings rose to a three-month high. Companies such as Foot Locker Inc. are facing a weakening global economy and the possibility of automatic tax increases and government cutbacks, helping explain limited...

New employment data released Wednesday threw yet another grenade into the explosive controversy following last week's report on September unemployment numbers. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (or JOLTS) showed that since December 2007 there has been a net loss of 4.67 million jobs. But as scary as that number is, it does not tell us much on its own, any more than single data points like 7.8 percent (official unemployment), 14.7 percent (unemployment including workers who stopped looking for a job), or 114,000 (number of jobs created in September). To understand what these numbers mean and whether employment...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell sharply in the latest week to their lowest level since February 2008, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The number of initial claims in the week ending Oct. 6 fell 30,000 to 339,000. The decline was unexpected.

Link Only per FR rules: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-10/job-openings-in-u-s-decreased-32-000-in-august-hiring-rose.html

Imagine a country where challenging the ruling authorities—questioning, say, a piece of data released by central headquarters—would result in mobs of administration sympathizers claiming you should feel "embarrassed" and labeling you a fool, or worse. Soviet Russia perhaps? Communist China? Nope, that would be the United States right now, when a person (like me, for instance) suggests that a certain government datum (like the September unemployment rate of 7.8%) doesn't make sense.

WASHINGTON - Finally, a pollster asked voters the one question that matters in this presidential election: Does Barack Obama know how to fix the economy? When the Pew Research Center asked that question in the days following Mitt Romney's strong performance in last week's presidential debate, a majority of the voters answered, no. The central failure of Obama's presidency centers on his demonstrated inability to restore the economy to full health and vigor after trillions of dollars in job stimulus spending that created few jobs but added $5 trillion to the federal debt. Pew put the question to likely voters...