Tammy Bruce:
Not entirely unexpected considering the regular numbers shenanigans from this administration. Horrible performance for 44 months and then suddenly an improvement–the month before the election. Right. Don’t get me wrong–I’d be thrilled if this number was real, but the fact of the matter is, like with everything else Obama does, it’s baked to benefit Obama with complete disregard about the impact on regular people’s lives. Santelli and Jack Welch have already chimed in with concerns about legitimacy. I would expect we’ll see an ‘adjustment’ just after the election reflecting the real number. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years. The rate declined because more people found work, a trend that could have an impact on undecided voters in the final month before the presidential election.
The Labor Department said Friday that employers added 114,000 jobs in September. The economy also created 86,000 more jobs in July and August than first estimated. Wages rose in September and more people started looking for work.
The revisions show employers added 146,000 jobs per month from July through September, up from 67,000 in the previous three months. The unemployment rate fell from 8.1 percent in August, matching its level in January 2009 when President Barack Obama took office.
The decline could help Obama, who is coming off a disappointing debate performance against GOP challenger Mitt Romney.
Heh. Here’s what Santelli (via Newsbusters), Welch and Pethokoukis think.
Added via Ace:
Ed notes there are two employment surveys each month: One of businesses (in which 410,000 businesses report) and a large phone survey of households (in which 60,000 homes are called).
The latter survey is much more volatile than the first. It tends to have lots of noise in it, and big swings. But even so, this big spike is notable for being bigger than recent swings (see chart at bottom).
It’s this last survey that informs the actual unemployment figure. The first number, the payroll survey, tells us the net job creation in a month.
Now, according to the household survey, 873,000 jobs were created last month. Very close to one million jobs. That’s not unprecedented; it happened last in 1983.
Only thing is, when that happened in 1983, that was in the first blast of the Reagan boom, and the country’s Gross Domestic Product was growing at a blistering 9.3% rate.
Current rate of GDP growth? Something like 1.3%.
So. You can buy that this number is real, and we all just missed the signs of a 9.3% growth spurt, or you can wonder if maybe this isn’t just an “implausible statistical quirk,” as one analyst calls it. Every poll — and that’s what the household survey is, a big poll — is subject for the occasional outside-the-MoE error.
You don’t even have to think Obama cooked the books (though Jay Cost reminds that that does happen) to look at the number with suspicion.
The economy simply did not add 873,000 jobs last month. It simply did not. The payroll survey says it added a mere 114,000.
I had a burst of soda up the nose laughter upon seeing the false unemployment numbers this morning. We are one of the ‘lucky’ employers that receives the monthly call for payroll numbers from the DOL. It is a fine line of verbal dancing each month when they call. We give them accurate numbers but don’t skip an opportunity to throw a comment or two their direction after breaking the ice. Occasionally they get snippy, often they have the few seconds of dead air followed up with the obligatory courtesy laugh. This most recent call they actually got indignant. We lost an employee and hadn’t replaced them yet. Cripes you would have thought the sky was falling. Long winded point here is NO time in the previous 10 years had we received any phone calls about employee count. Mysteriously the calls started about 5 months ago….
greg will be here to cry about us talking down the economy, I’m sure.
BLS phone survey: 873,000 new jobs
Business reporting survey: 114,000 new jobs
=
Municipal hiring at
Chicago’s cemeteries: 759,000 ?
Per Wharton Today:
http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2012/10/unemployment-rate-drops-but-will-it-last/
The 873,000 phone survey number appears to be an “anomaly”.
According to Gallop the seasonally unadjusted under-employment rate is 16.6%.
This October employment report was predicted in January.
Who provides the numbers? The Department of Labor. Who runs the Department of Labor? The Secretary of Labor. Who appoints her? The President.
Do you really believe that Sec Solis will not follow instructions?
Come on.
This has been going on for four years. Want the unemployment rate down? Simple. Just remove enough individuals from the “work force” to make the rate whatever you want.
After all, it is not a given that a person wants to work. The Labor Department must qualify that individual as wanting to work. If you say you want to work but Labor says no, then you don’t really want work. See? It is easy.
So ignore that old U6 number.
Ignore the comparison of those working with the US Population now and in 2009.
Ignore the fact that fewer are working now than in 2009. Those are inconvenient truths.
The stated narrative is that Obama is Wonderful.
And don’t you forget it!
The liberal media is going wild. Ape crazy! Loco! This is it! Unemployment down, bad news for Romney. Ahhhh, well.
Allow me to put it into perspective: 1) Because the drop in unemployment was just a measly .3% (That’s three tenths of one percent, not much at all), it’s like Obama’s “forward” going 3 mph on a 55 mile-per-hour freeway. Not fast at all. Almost backward, or at a standstill. At that rate, we’ll have to wait until the second coming for any progress with Obama. This being a monthly calculation over 4 years (that’s 48 month, or at least 46), it is like ACTUALLY .0065 percentage points per month! As Romney said yesterday, THAT’S NOT A REAL RECOVERY. 2) You want a real life example of Obama’s .3% drop in unemployment since he took office? It’s the equivalent of giving Obama an aspirin for his cancer.
The sad truth about this whole thing is that there are millions of people still out of work. The .3% is a joke. To celebrate it is having a heightened sense of idiocy. It may not even exist. Romney says the real unemployment rate under Obama is actually 11%. And that’s educated experience talking.
There are many people across this great country waiting to oust Obama so they can have a piece of the Romney dream; and I count myself among the good people working for a better tomorrow with Romney. But remember Romney has experience; he’s worked to actually create jobs, saved the Olympics in 2000.
Don’t celebrate: the price of gas has doubled with Obama (bad news) and is causing very serious problems for family budgets (how many divorces and business failures is Obama responsible for; not including his own), mortgages are inaccessible, food prices are up, product size is shrinking (a form of theft), regulation is getting worse under Democrats, foreclosures are still happening (something real jobs creation would cure right away), health care costs are going up, and more real bad news for Obama — people know that the coming taxes on Obama-care will be high — so out with Obama and Obama-care!
As for me, I’m voting for the white guys. Make a hole! Romney and Ryan are coming through. For good. They are simply white as the driven snow. You gotta love it.
@Hard Right, #2:
Discounting the news would be consistent with a long-standing pattern on the right. An increase in hiring shouldn’t really be surprising, though, after a prolonged period when businesses were making do with as little hiring as possible.
Even with slow but steady economic growth, some degree of pent up demand for help develops. Recently there was the school shopping season. Now holiday buying and shopping are ahead. There are many consumers who have put off numerous discretionary purchases, who are now considering them again. Employers who want to exploit that commercially need more people to do so.
Ummm greg, the above article explains why and the lack of accuracy. Thanks yet again for proving me right.
Unemployment is still above 8%. That is a fact. You and your ilk just need to deal with that reality.
Many businesses add holiday help this time of year.
Most try to hold those new employees down to part time to save on the costs of extras.
Even our print shop is hiring a few extra folks because of business holiday ads and posters.
Ace is correct also about the noise in the telephone survey which forms the basis of the unemployment number.
On the Establishment Survey side, only 114K jobs were added (DOOM!™). Goods producers actually lost 10,000 jobs, while the big winners were people in education and health (+49K).
There are a couple of graphs that put today’s report into perspective.
This graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.
As you can readily see long term unemployment remains one of the key labor problems in the US.
This graph shows total state and government payroll employment since January 2007.
As you can see above the government is back hiring people, even as the Post Office is broke!
This graph shows the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers)
As you can see here our ”recovery” consists of many more people having to accept part time work when they would like full time.
According to the chart, this happened after the 1991 recession as well.
This time around it is much worse.
Well, we knew this was coming. Some people are depressingly predictable. An interesting take on this pattern on the Right.
http://m.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/10/any-good-news-obama-must-be-conspiracy/57655/
I would like to know exactly, how those like Tom, Greg, Liberal1O defend the blatant Socialist Statements of Redistribution of [everyone’s] wealth… inclusive of the Middle Class…
Did anything in the Debates resonate with you people? Specifically the track record of [Real] Business experience is: Romney = 25 Years vs OFraud = “ZERO” ??????????
…AND all of a ‘SUDDEN’ !! the Unemployment rate miraculously drops ??? [to 7.8 ??] OMG!!
You are all a bunch of jokers, you are laughable, naive and so gullible…you all are ‘actually’ defending this bull shit??? OMG!!!
Ummmm tommy boy, it was a poll of residents and is known to be an erratic indicator of unemployment etc.
If you looked at sources other than the Atlantic, you would know that. Instead you seek to justify your hatred of Conservatives.
@Greg: @Tom:
Skeptical analysis of this particular news would be consistent with a long-standing pattern on the right; critical thinking.
It wouldn’t have been or shouldn’t have been surprising in the 3rd or 4th quarters of 2009 however this in the 3rd quarter of 2012 and economic results and trend lines are mixed and perhaps trending downward toward recession. Economic growth in the second quarter was recently reduced from 1.7% to 1.2% on an annualized basis.
The larger BLS survey of actual businesses reports only 114,000 jobs added. This is a slow down from August 2012, and way below the 893,000 mostly part time jobs estimated from the smaller less reliable BLS household telephone survey.
ADP’s numbers are similar to the 114,000 in the BLS business jobs survey. ADP’s numbers were also below economists’ expectations.
Gallop reports a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.1% for September 2012 and an unadjusted rate which is unchanged from August 2012.
Why does the BLS household survey NOT look bizarrely anomalous to you Greg and Tom in light of the other indicators?.
Thoughtful answers only please.
This is just the first salvo. More incoming on the way.
@Mike O’Malley:
Mike, would it be thoughtful to say that most conspiracies rest upon multiple assumptions that can eventually be proven or disproven? I remember one that said President Obama had no birth certificate. Now when it came out, those proponents of the original theory split into two camps: the camp that believed an even wilder theory (“it’s a fake!”); and the camp that admitted they were wrong, and even apologized to Obama. Ha! Did I get you? Of course the latter camp does not exist. Those not belonging to camp one just become amnesiacs about the whole thing, just mindless carriers of the bug that is the next Obama theory. Which are you, Mike?
So will you be back if/when you’re proven wrong, Mike. Mike. Mike?
There is no conspiracy here tom, just information that does not support the BS you are pushing.
For the seconf time, it’s explained above. Are you really that incapable of facing facts? Apparently so. It is typical of the mentally ill left like yourself to deny reality then project your tendencies onto others. This is a prime example.
The fact you cannot refute the explanation of the numbers with facts tells us your arguement is nothing more than your inability to face that which you do not like. Keep flailing away tho. It’s amusing.
So tell us tom, will YOU admit you are wrong when more info comes out further proving us right? I know the answer is no as your kind only goes further in your fantasy world when proven wrong.
That’s how we get excuses like obama was suffering in the debate from altitude. Rather than adjust your views to face reality, you try to bend reality. That is why you are wrong so very much. Because you can’t accept that outcome, you spew your venom at us. That way you don’t have to analyze yourself or your views. Debating you is like debating a child. No. Challenge. At. All.
This may be hard to believe but the household survey, the one with 878,000 jobs created has a margin of error of + or – 400,000.
@Tom:
Oddly Tom you remember incorrectly. The issue wasn’t that Pres. Obama didn’t have a birth certificate , the issue was that he would not release his birth certificate so as to disprove the story that his Kenyan grandmother started about Barack Obama Jr. being born in Kenya.
I asked you for thoughtful answers Tom, was it necessary for me to ask for honest answers too?
Perhaps you haven’t thought this out well Tom. After the Pres. Obama released his birth certificate, something he could have and should have done in the Summer of 2008 at the latest, most Birthers accepted the evidence but could not understand why Pres. Obama did not to the right thing and release his birth certificate at the get-go. However new critics came on board when they noticed genuine problems with Obama’s published birth certificate.
“Your love of the half-lings’ leaf has clearly clouded your mind”, perhaps? I’ve been rather clear on this point. Why have you forgotten Tom?
I just got back to you Tom and demonstrated how you are wrong Tom.
.
BTW: this was published by AP in June 2004. Tom, from where did AP get this information?
Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate
In September 2004, new numbers came out, showing a drop in unemployment from 5.5% to 5.4%.
At that time, with a much lower unemployment number than we have today (around 8% today), the increase in new jobs that caused a 0.1% decrease in unemployment was 144,000.
So, let’s get this straight.
With 144,000 new jobs in a smaller U.S. population (about 295 million in 2004 vs. about 314 million today), you get a drop in unemployment by 0.1%.
But now, 8 years later, with a greater population, you get 114,000 new jobs and, somehow, you get an even larger drop in unemployment: from 8.1% to 7.8%?
That just makes no sense.
Old numbers:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/03/news/economy/jobless_august/
New numbers:
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/10/05/dishonest-unemployment-numbers
Apparently the Household Survey was gamed.
Employed people were kept onboard, unemployed people dropped.
Employed people were added.
Looks great on paper.
Where else has Obama only looked great on paper?
Oh, yeah….
That blip of employment when he hired, fired, rehired, re-fired, rehired US Census workers.
That blip in auto sales caused by Cash 4 Clunkers.
That blip in home sales caused by the first-time home buyers mortgage assistance.
This is going to be a mere blip as well.
But it was timed to the election.
The economy needs to add something like 120,000 jobs each month to keep up with new people entering the workforce. The economy adds 114,000 and the unemployment rate drops from 8.1% to 7.8%. We are being lied to.
@Nan G:
FDR used government spending to substantially game unemployment numbers in the month before each critical election. Each time after the election passed and FDR had gained his election victories the unemployment numbers collapsed back to deep depression levels by the following December.
@Mike O’Malley:
Actually, Mike, I think your memory is a little fuzzy on Birtherism and their claims made when it was all the rage. Birthers, of course, did indeed call Obama’s birthplace into question. To suggest this was all about seeing a document is absurd. And everyone, including Obama, knew supplying that document would have little impact upon a cult motivated not by civic minded patriotism, but by hatred. And we’ve been proven correct, if you are any Indication. I’ve found that Birthers are both gullible and compulsive, incapable of not latching onto whatever scrap of “evidence” they can muster, regardless of how dubious its origins. And here you are, with your “news item”, in the same post (face slap) both directly contradicting yourself, and proving my point. You might want to polish up on this whole debating thing, Mike.
The increase in employment is most likely real. If you want to deny Obama all credit, you can always attribute it to an entirely normal and recurring seasonal fluctuation. There’s no need to deny reality and begin cranking out conspiracy theories–unless, of course, you’ve done that for so long that you just can’t help yourself.
Let’s take a look at some of the numbers put out by the BLS recently:
In June, the civilian labor force stood at 155,163[000]. By July, that number had dropped to 155013, August 154645, but in September, the number magically rose to 155063 for a one month increase in the civilian labor force by 418,000 people. But that number, and the fact that the civilian labor force is 100,000 less than it was the end of June is very telling.
In June 2009, our civilian work force was at 154,800,000. Yet, now it is only 263,000 greater but our population has increased almost 4 million since the U.S. Census. Are we to believe that out of that 4 million, only 6% have entered the work force?
Why? Because the unemployment rate is calculated by the number of workers listed in the employment level figures and the number of unemployed. And how is the number of unemployed calculated? By using the number of people who filed for unemployment during the month added to the number of people already receiving unemployment benefits. Anyone who has expired their unemployment benefits are dropped from the unemployment rolls. In August, the number of unemployed was 12,544,000. That number was reduced to 12,088,000 in September. 456,000 workers were dropped from the unemployment rolls, yet the chart shows that in one month, August to September, the number of employed increased by 873,000 people.
If those 456,000 that were dropped from the unemployment rolls found jobs, that would leave 373,000 new workers just entering the civilian work force. Logic would tell you that if 373,000 just entered the work force, the civilian work force numbers should have increased by that amount, right? But the civilian work force amazing increased by 481,000.
In June, the unemployment number was 12749[000], increased to 12794 in July, but amazingly fell by 250,000 in August, while the employment level fell from 142415 in June to 142101 in August, a decrease in employment by 314,000, but the unemployment rate fell to 8.1 in August from 8.2 in June.
The unemployment rate is being achieved by dropping Americans from the work force rolls, and dropping those who have used up all their unemployment benefits from the unemployed rolls. It is all smoke and mirrors and if anyone thinks that our labor force has only grown by less than 1/2 million in almost four years while our population continues to grow, well, let me sell you some ocean front property in Lubbock.
In the time between the 2010 census and the beginning of 2012, our population increased by almost 4 million people. In June 2009, our civilian work force was at 154,800. Now it is only 263,000 more. Are we to assume that out of 4 million people only 6% of them have entered the work force?
Every month I print out the BLS stats. Around June, 2009, it seems that the numbers were being reworked (from previous data) to reflect a different picture. Yeah, I would say there is some hanky panky going on by the BLS to make sure that the numbers don’t reflect the true umployment crisis in this nation.
@Tom:
Objectively, you are wrong (again) Tom. Days after Pres. Obama DID RELEASE his birth certificate liberal think tank Pew Research surveyed by polling the reaction to the new evidence and found Birtherism in collapse.
Now to what degree your observations are motivated not by civic minded patriotism, but by hatred, Tom, we can leave for another day. I have little desire to invest time in your psychoanalysis . One may observe that criticism often includes no small degree of projection and then we can move on.
How might we move on? How? Well I can point out that this was “my bad”. I fed the troll. Birthism is a Red Herring that I did not refuse perhaps because I don’t respect your intellect Tom.
OK I’ll make amends and treat you like an intelligent adult Tom and ask you to return to topic.
The larger BLS survey of actual businesses reports only 114,000 jobs added. This is a slow down from August 2012, and way below the 893,000 mostly part time jobs estimated from the smaller less reliable BLS household telephone survey.
ADP’s numbers are similar to the 114,000 in the BLS business jobs survey. ADP’s numbers were also below economists’ expectations.
Gallop reports a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 8.1% for September 2012 and an unadjusted rate which is unchanged from August 2012.
This magnitude of a drop in unemployment wouldn’t have been or shouldn’t have been surprising in the 3rd or 4th quarters of 2009 however this in the 3rd quarter of 2012 and economic results and trend lines are mixed and perhaps trending downward toward recession. Economic growth in the second quarter was recently reduced from 1.7% to 1.2% on an annualized basis.
Why does the BLS household survey NOT look bizarrely anomalous to you Greg and Tom in light of the other indicators?.
Thoughtful answers only please.
@Greg:
“Begging the question (Latin petitio principii, “assuming the initial point”) is a type of logical fallacy in which a proposition relies on an implicit premise within itself to establish the truth of that same proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion. Such arguments are essentially of the form “a is true because a is true” though rarely is such an argument stated as such. Often the premise ‘a’ is only one of many premises that go into proving that ‘a’ is true as a conclusion.”
Is that where you are going Greg?
Description of Circumstantial Ad Hominem
“A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person’s circumstances (such as the person’s religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.)….
A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy because a person’s interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person’s interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own. It is also the case that a person’s circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of the claim. This is made quite clear by the following example: “Bill claims that 1+1=2. But he is a Republican, so his claim is false.”
There are times when it is prudent to suspicious of a person’s claims, such as when it is evident that the claims are being biased by the person’s interests. For example, if a tobacco company representative claims that tobacco does not cause cancer, it would be prudent to not simply accept the claim. This is because the person has a motivation to make the claim, whether it is true or not. However, the mere fact that the person has a motivation to make the claim does not make it false. For example, suppose a parent tells her son that sticking a fork in a light socket would be dangerous. Simply because she has a motivation to say this obviously does not make her claim false. ”
OK Greg, economists doubt the veritude of this particular unemployment estimate. How about giving us a reasoned argument supporting your belief that it is right. Retire05 and I have offered substantial reasons and evidence that it is doubtful and perhaps wrong. Explain to us why it is right. Remember, that parent who tells her son that sticking a fork in a light socket would be dangerous. Simply because she has a motivation to say this obviously does not make her claim false
@Mike O’Malley:
How it “looks” is of course subjective. I can’t objectively prove whether it looks anomalous or not, and neither can you. Under the circumstances, I believe I therefore fulfilled your requested “thoughtful reply” by pointing out that you and others have a documented pattern of crying conspiracy every time a news item appears to break Obama’s way. If you are blind to this compullsion within yourself, i hope I have done you a service by bringing it to your attention.
While I can’t prove how one should feel about the labor stats, a very compelling argument can be made that statistically this report is hardly “anomalous”:
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/05/september-jobs-report-debunking-the-jobs-report-conspiracy-theories/
@Tom:
Obviously, anything that someone might say about Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is considered a slight, or even better, a conspiracy theory, by you. Nevermind that he is the chief executive of the federal government, and ALL federal government workers, appointed or hired, report to him.
We have a POTUS that seems incapable of taking responsibility for anything that happens under his watch, from almost four years of 8+% unemployment, to record deficits, to the failures in the Middle East. One has to wonder why you, who seems relatively intelligent, would support someone who has been such an unmitigated failure.
So, why don’t you explain to us why you still support Obama? Because frankly, I find that a bit puzzling.
@ Retire,
For most, a good job report is non partisan good news. It’s not just Republicans or just Democrats who now have jobs. You, of course, believe the likely reason for the report is a conspiracy that would involve many people and be impossible to hide. But the extreme illogic of your position escapes you. More troubling to me is your viceral reaction of disappointment any time something good happens in the country if it might benefit Obama, and vice versa. You seem downright giddy when something goes wrong, people lose jobs, even lives, if it gives you a reason to attack Obama. The simple truth is you and certain others on this site hate Obama more than you love America. That’s a shame you’ll have to live with as long as this site survives to document it.
@Tom:
What a sicko you are to accuse someone of being “downright giddy when something goes wrong.” How dare you!
I am sick to my stomach that we have a dead U.S. Ambassador due to the ineptness of this president. Him and Hillary Clinton need to be hauled in front of a Congressional hearing and prosecuted. Or do you not hold Obama responsible for his own Secretary of State that pulled a 16 member security team from Libya in August, even though there were repeated threats to the U.S. Ambassador?
You see, unlike you on the left, who absolutely hated George Bush, I am not going to protest march with a placard of a beheaded Barack Obama like your side did with George Bush. I an not going to call for his assassination, like the left did with Geo. Bush. So please, spare me your faux indignation over the fact that I have known for five years that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. was not up to the task of being the president.
I provided you with hard numbers that shows the BLS stats do not support the claim that unemployment is going down. But that wasn’t good enough for a Obama-aide drinker like you. Perhaps my numbers were more than you could count, even removing your shoes to do the count, but that isn’t my problem, now is it?
@Tom:
Don’t was our time with unsubstantiated ad hominem, Tom.
Dude, I have many many a year of successful professional experience finding, teasing out and questioning data anomalies such as these. Objectively there seems to be a problem here because the data doesn’t fit. The BLS household phone survey is notoriously volatile, as Ezra Klien of the Post seems to understand. Perhaps this survey has experienced a second or third standard deviation event. Perhaps this particular survey has picked up something that the other surveys will confirm next month. Perhaps someone cooked the books. And there is the historical precedent of FDR gaming the unemployment numbers in the run up to national elections.
So Tom, help us understand why has BLS household survey produced a result that is notably inconsistent with the other indicators?
Thoughtful and unfallacious answers only please.
@retire05: #29
Tom’s just playing with you. The more you respond to him, the harding he is laughing at you.