Jobless claims at 281,000 week ending April 4, 2015. Better than expected

Washington Examiner ^ | 04/09/2015 | BY JOSEPH LAWLER

[wny]

I think the proper term is “sucked less than expected”

[nascarnation]

Is it just my poor memory, or did these “unexpected” adjectives never get reported until early 2009?

[babble-on]

The youth labor force—16- to 24-year-olds working or actively looking for work—grows sharply between April and July each year. During these months, large numbers of high school and college students search for or take summer jobs, and many graduates enter the labor market to look for or begin permanent employment.

In 2014, the youth labor force grew by 3.0 million, or 14.5 percent, to a total of 23.4 million in July. It shrinks again when most of these people go back to school in the fall.

But again, you are welcome to consider only the unadjusted data if you choose. What you’ll see are the same spikes and valleys every year, and you’ll immediately start smoothing them out in order to try to tell what is actually happening.

[jjsheridan5]

What you’ll see are the same spikes and valleys every year, and you’ll immediately start smoothing them out in order to try to tell what is actually happening.

Not if you have an ounce of common sense. If you did, you would simply compare year-to-year, which would be an apples-to-apples comparison. "Smoothing", to create the appearance of month-to-month stability (where there is none), would only be done by those who don't recognize the inherent futility of such an attempt.

[babble-on]

So, you are in the “seasonal adjustments are a Communist conspiracy like flouridated water” camp. Good to know.

[babble-on]

So, you are in the “seasonal adjustments are a Communist conspiracy like flouridated water” camp. Good to know.

[jjsheridan5]

So, you are in the “seasonal adjustments are a Communist conspiracy like flouridated water” camp. Good to know.

So, you are in the completely illiterate camp. Good to know. I merely pointed out that seasonal adjustments are inherently flawed, because they are trying to convey the illusion of month-to-month stability, where there is none. Comparing this, to a conspiracy revolving around fluoride, requires a level of comprehension so minute as to be theoretically undetectable.

There is no way to do seasonal adjustments, such that the resulting number conveys information better than merely the raw numbers compared year-to-year. The fact that you are incapable of hearing this, without launching into a rant about "conspiracies", speaks volumes. Next time you go into a rant, you may want to look in a mirror, and bemoan your lack of reading comprehension.

[babble-on]

Your entire point is so stupid as to be farcical.

Every person on this website seems to think that the entire staff of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is part of some sort of Orwellian Lie Machine that exists to fabricate data to make Obama look good. One halfwit didn’t even know that seasonal adjustments net out to zero over the course of the year.

Every economist I know, and that is hundreds of them based on my profession, understands how seasonal adjustments work, and every one of them uses the seasonally adjusted data more often in the course of macroeconomic data than the non-adjusted numbers, in spite of the imperfections of the adjustment procedures.

Those of us in the actual business of forecasting and discussing economic statistics professionally do not have the leisure to wait 12 months to see whether the economy is strengthening or weakening, so we smooth out the data, because while inherently flawed it makes more sense than looking at unadjusted data for month to month comparisons.