Posted on 09/01/2011 6:07:26 AM PDT by markomalley
New applications for unemployment compensation fell by 12,000 last week to 409,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Initial claims from two weeks ago were revised up to 421,000 from an original reading of 417,000. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected new requests for jobless benefits to drop to 405,000 in the week of Aug. 27 on a seasonally adjusted basis.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
The number of jobs not saved by the White House remains above 400k.
Anybody know when’s the last time (if ever) this number was revised *down*?
So the economy still sucks!
This will be “revised” up again when the propaganda effect of “improvement” has been trumpeted by the servile press.
I don’t trust any of these employment numbers, nor any of the budgetary numbers for that matter.
If the initial estimation method is correct it should be revised upward and downward about equally. The fact that almost every singe week it has to be revised upward means that it has a bias, perhaps even an intentional one.
If someone setting the initial line for football betting had a long term average of a 7 point bias for the home team, he would either have to correct that or he would lose his job. Ditto for the people who come up low every week on unemployment claims.
I was tracking this for a while (this was the only metric that remotely showed any positive news for Obama, so the MSM was running with it). There have been one or two minor downward revisions over the year. The average upward revision was around 3000. To me, if I was being honest, and my figures were consistently 3000 new claims lower every week, I would build in a 3000 fudge factor. If I was trying to be accurate that is. On the other hand, consistently underreporting the new jobless claims allows the reporter to get the best of two worlds. Lower numbers this week, and a higher drop in claims than there really are. (They claim a drop of 12,000, but it is really just a drop of 8,000 from last weeks reported numbers - sometimes the ‘drop’ was really a rise)
Has anyone seen a plot of “revised” vs “initial” numbers over time to show if/any bias?
I just really don’t want to go dumpster diving at the dept of labor website, but I will plot them if someone finds them.
Do you have a link to the historical numbers beyond this administration to compare “accuracy?”
Im not even sure why people bother to read this crap. The numbers are always made up. This 12k drop will get revised to about a 17k gain in a couple weeks anyway.
Now that’s a worthwhile project.
I am sure that somebody has done it before. Just like someone probably knows exactly how many discouraged workers have dropped off the face of the earth and are now probably in the underground economy.
These are brand new applications for unemployment benefits in a climate in which there are no new jobs to go to.
Some claim that there is always the job-shifting that goes on, and that it averages around 400,000, so that anything above 400,000 is bad, and anything below 400,000 shows a growing economy.
I disagree based on the numbers during the high employment years of Pres’s Bush and Clinton. The average number was in the range of 250,000 to 350,000.
409,000 is bad and means the economy is in trouble. They hide the truth, though, with their sleight-of-hand record keeping that allows them to ignore those who’ve been unemployed for so long that they drop them from the numbers.
These “Discouraged Job Seekers” should be proclaimed any time the unemployment number is given.
Until next months revision...
Interesting little kubuki dance at play here, how the previous week’s numbers almost always get an upward revision... followed by the most recent figures, about which the MSM will celebrate a “drop” in unemployment claims.
The fact that it’s still above 400K means the U.S. economy is still sucking wind and will continue to do so until Obungo is gone from the White House.
Exactly.
Ok so this is like me thinking “we are in debt $100,000 and telling my husband it’s $150,000 and revising it to $110,000” Makes it seem not so bad
Great post, fhayek.
It’s easy enough to go back in the record and see what the weekly job “turmoil” was in the GW Bush and B Clinton eras. It was far, far below 400,000. And there was a sentiment then that called 4.5% “full employment.”
The thought was that there were that many only pretending to be looking for jobs. For us, that means that our current 9.1% is terrible. Add in the fact that they use fake numbers, and it says that middle class America is hurting badly.
I am so amazed at how the unemployment numbers are reported - as if the total number of unemployed was actually going down. It is not. WE need to hammer this to everyone we can - and to our newspapers and other media outlets as well...
These numbers are NEW unemployment claims. The long and short - there were over 400K NEW people added to the unemployment rolls in that time frame. 400K more who are now looking to the government for a check to make ends meet. 400K who are no longer working. Add these to the MILLIONS who remain unemployed and ON the unemployment rolls (still eligible to receive checks), and to the uncounted MILLIONS who have fallen off the unemployment rolls because they have run out of eligibility for benefits or have just flat given up the search. An honest look at the REALITY paints a very sad and ugly picture.
I still don’t understand why the government changed the unemployment accounting formula (other than to hide the facts) - the reported unemployment rate should include ALL who are unemployed. The only people who should not be counted are those who really don’t WANT a job (and there should be a means to deal with those as well - that doesn’t involve getting a free check).
Things will improve drastically next week.
It is a 4-day work week [results on 9-15].
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