Posted on 05/02/2014 6:53:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The American economy gained steam in April, adding 288,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent, the lowest level since September 2008.
After a sharp slowdown in December and January, and a modest improvement since then, economists had been forecasting a healthy gain for April as consumer and business activity rose in tandem with temperatures in many parts of the country.
But the good news was tempered by a drop of 806,000 in the number of Americans in the labor force, pushing the labor participation rate down sharply. And despite the fall in joblessness, average hourly earnings did not rise at all.
The consensus among economists polled by Bloomberg before the Labor Department’s announcement Friday morning called for an increase of 218,000 in nonfarm payrolls, with the unemployment rate falling by 0.1 percent to 6.6 percent.
To be sure, month-to-month swings in hiring are a snapshot of the economy, rather than a portrait, and frequently blur.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
BUNK.
The number of potential employees, dropped by the same amount. Four tenths of one percent.
This number is complete bunk.
Yeah, the unemployment rate is only 1% above what is considered full employment...
raaaaahhhht...
The economic rebound, which the media will accrue 100% to Obama and ObamaCare, plus the GOP’s betrayal of their base on immigration, may well cause White voters to stay home this fall, and see the Senate remain with a Democrat majority.
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.
The gop is every bit as sold-out to foreign production, as are democrats.
That is the reason America does not have an actual discussion, about this. Both parties are sold out.
Bring back American jobs.
Okay. So the GDP fell because of the weather but companies started hiring like crazy? ROTFL! Hey Kids! It's FUN WITH NUMBERS Friday!!!! Woo! Hoo!
It’s an irony that “white advantage” (black disadvantage) in the job market has increased under this ostensible black booster.
Sometime or other one would think this smoke and mirrors would grow old even for some black voters.
What percentage of people in Detroit are ‘disabled’... how many ‘unemployed’ aren’t being counted? I’m with you - this is New York Times at their best covering for Democrats.
zzzzzzzz
I would rather put it: Quit stifling American production.
We all wince at the gas prices but this is probably one of the final major life preservers of the economy. Oil continues to make out like a bandit, for now, and all that spending money DOES trickle down.
“But the good news was tempered by a drop of 806,000 in the number of Americans in the labor force,”
Only the “paper of record” that isn’t fit to line a birdcage would consider a labor force reduction to be good news.
Add to that the fact that the phony concept of the "labor participation rate" makes the whole thing a farce anyway. They can just arbitrarily take any number of millions of long-term unemployed, toss them into the category of "discouraged job seeker," and = poof = they come off the "unemployed" total, thereby decreasing that percentage.
BUT--We're making steady progress.
Thanks, NY Times. We knew we could count on you to spin, spin, spin.
I completely agree.
Oil has been booming, but the rest of our economy sucks.
Gets worse all the time.
Our side needs to take the lead. Bring jobs back to America.
I’m still watching Bloomberg. Someone just mentioned that if the employment rate were calculated on a stable number, the unemployment rate would have gone UP.
Unemployment would have GONE UP.
Thanks you to that principled person. Sorry I did not get your name.
Everyone else is sold out.
From which orifice do these “economists” pull out their numbers?
That's enormous.
Hmmm... I wonder if this has something to do with the record low labor-participation rate I saw reported this morning.
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