The Unexpected
Posted on 04/09/2015 6:32:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There were 281,000 first-time claims for unemployment for the week ending April 4, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.
That was an increase from the previous week's revised 268,000 jobless claims, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, but better than investors expected.
The four-week moving average of claims, meanwhile, fell by 3,000 to 282,250. That average was the lowest since June of 2000, reflecting the ongoing improvement in the U.S. labor market.
Low first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits are viewed as a positive sign for the economy, as fewer layoffs generally indicate greater net hiring.
Thursday's good news comes after Friday's disappointing jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the U.S. added just 126,000 payroll jobs for the month of March, and that the previous two months saw 69,000 fewer jobs created than previously thought.
That weak report was enough to raise questions about the overall strength of the jobs recovery and economy in the beginning of 2015.
Claims for unemployment insurance have been among the more positive signs of the economy in the winter months. First-time claims for unemployment have been under the 300,000 for five straight weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
1) Is the DLS staffer who tweeted about ‘Nazis in Indiana’ still working there?
2) ‘Seasonal adjustments’ are a charter to fiddle the numbers since a) we are always in one of four seasons and b) if they adjust in all four seasons, there is no baseline for the adjustment.
Still, if they think it’s a valid practice I will seasonally adjust my tax payments in my favor.
So I guess the enemedia will trumpet this as an Big Brother Obama success story concerning jobs and the economy, even though a recent report had jobs created at rate much smaller than expected? I guess we’ll hear about this on the video screen in our apartments.
Good news....
Not if you are one of 281,000
Coming soon to a revision near you!!!
OK, bahahaha. Sure.
Alternately--More than a quarter of a million new unemployment claims were filed by US citizens during the week of APR 4.
The good news for the administration is that the number of people they count as unemployed will most likely continue to drop.
They way they count it, the labor pool is getting smaller each week.
So many people have been driven from actively seeking employment by the O’conomy that they are getting old and dying off.
The Unexpected
Spin it baby, spin it!!!
If no one has been working for the last 6 years, how can they claim unemployment?
Talk about spinning the numbers!
These numbers are atrocious. Remedial. Any other administration would be taken to task by the poor results.
The Ministry of Plenty just announced it increased the chocolate ration to 20 grams a week!! Thank you Big Brother (wasn’t it 30 grams last week?)
You do realize that the net effect of seasonal adjustments spread across the whole year is zero, right?
They add some jobs in parts of the year when hiring is always weak and subtract the same numbers in parts when hiring is always strong in order to smooth out the sine wave.
This allows observers to see what is happening in the numbers aside from those seasonal swings.
” Better than expected”?
To be revised up at a later date
With this lot I am in no way confident that their adjustments will net to zero even if that is the prescribed method.
Moreover, if reality also nets to zero there is no need to inflate/deflate the unreality. Statistics are measurements, not geometric figures or electrical signals therefore ‘smoothing’ is gratuitous.
Observers seeking truth from a government scoring its own performance are on a hiding to nothing. It’s akin to giving Bill Belichick the scoreboard controls at a game and telling him ‘keep it close to make it more believable.’
The reason why the smoothing is useful is that without it the public would form the mistaken impression every December that the economy is suddenly booming, only to be horribly disappointed every January. Or when students in June start their summer jobs there would be euphoria at all the hiring and then depression in September when hundreds of thousands suddenly left the labor force.
If they didn’t use seasonal adjustments when they report the data, you would need to apply your own just to discount the obvious cycles that occur every single year. It makes sense, and they also report the unadjusted number too, if you prefer that one. But one thing it’s not is a conspiracy.
I trust the public to form their own conclusions. It seems most of them have long been aware of Christmas.
Summer jobs? You’re having a laugh.
At the risk of belaboring the point, the statisticians are working for the government and overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Their support of Obama ranging from mundane stickers and buttons to financial support is documented.
The numbers have been questioned, even mocked, by persons far more learned in economics than I. The successes are conveniently timed and conveniently meet this or that threshold. Conspiracy? Not in terms of explicit instructions or coordination. Bias? Without question.
How many first-time jobless claims are “normal?”
Really, why bother with anything coming out the Obama administration?
We all know that it’s all lies, all the time.
Don’t waste the bytes.
Save them for the upcoming SHTF and ensuing CW-II.
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