Posted on 09/06/2003 5:44:16 PM PDT by Maria S
The press has been saturated since Friday morning with misleading reports claiming that the number of jobs held by Americans declined by nearly 100,000 in August. However, the actual jobs statistic used by the Labor Department to measure the unemployment rate showed just the opposite - with the economy adding almost 150,000 new jobs.
The journalistic sleight of hand fueled headlines like "93,000 Get the Ax" in Saturday's New York Daily News, "Job Losses Mount for a 22nd Month" on the New York Times front page and Newsday's front page blast, "Goodbye Jobs."
While most press accounts eventually got around to noting that the actual unemployment rate fell from 6.2 percent to 6.1 percent, the information was often buried deep into the reports. The Daily News, for instance, didn't mention the improving statistic until seven paragraphs into its coverage.
Most press accounts disingenuously chalked up the discrepancy between their claims that the economy lost jobs and the declining unemployment rate to "workers who were so discouraged at the bleak job prospects that they stopped looking."
Some went even further. Citing unnamed "economists," the New York Times claimed bizarrely that the divergent statistics were due to "a surge in the number of people who, having lost their jobs, listed themselves as self employed rather than unemployed."
However, nine paragraphs into its own coverage of yesterday's unemployment report, the Washington Post admitted that claims of job losses were based on a separate survey of business payrolls, which is normally not part of the Labor Department's monthly unemployment report:
"The unemployment rate can decline as the number of payroll jobs drops because, in part, the figures come from different surveys," the Post explained. "The unemployment rate is based on a survey of 60,000 households, which found that total employment rose by 147,000 workers in August as the number of unemployed people fell by 157,000, to 8.9 million.
"The [declining] number of payroll jobs comes from the department's monthly survey of about 400,000 businesses," the Post said.
Another detail excluded from most coverage of Friday's jobs report: Blacks and Hispanics showed the most gains. While the unemployment rate for whites fell by just one percent, it declined for blacks by twice that amount, from 11.1 to 10.9 percent.
The rate unemployment rate for Hispanics fell even further, from 8.2 percent to 7.8 percent.
What do you expect, of course their doing this, the media hates american.
Since there are payroll declines due to reasons unrelated to the macroeconomic environment - like jobs at beaches towns ending - seasonally adjusted figures give the more accurate picture, assuming the adjustment is done in a statistically accurate fashion. That's the whole reason for seasonal adjustments.
150,000 New Jobs Added August
In order to establish the accuracy of that statement, one must demonstrate where the data indicates job creation. Seasonally adjusted figures may give a more accurate relative portrait (that's why seasonal adjustments are made) but they do not establish an absolute statement such as the above.
The only valid statistical measure is the payrolls figure, which indicated a 93,000 cut - which is supported, not contradicted, by the unadjusted employment survey results..
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