Unemployment Rate Drops Just Before Election – Convenience or Miracle?

It’s a miracle! The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says 873,000 people found work, yet it reports only 114,000 new jobs were added.

Or did the BLS “cook the books” so as to make the unemployment rate convenient for President Barack Hussein Hubris “kill list” Obama? Let’s examine recent events, and what the BLS figures mean to the Labor Department, the BLS, and Obama with respect to the MSM.

First, we had the Labor Department “find” 386,000 jobs – a miracle in and of itself. Then the BLS reported, on October 5, 2012, that the September “official” U-3 unemployment rate is 7.8 percent. Both revelations were met with derision. As Daniel Horowitz at RedState.com said, “Today’s [Friday’s] report of September employment is so bizarre that it’s hard to comprehend, much less give over.” And, Rick Santelli, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said, “I told you they’d get it under 8 percent – they did!”

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis defended the BLS unemployment report, saying, “I’m insulted when I hear that, because we have a very professional civil service … have the highest regard for our professionals that do the calculations at the [BLS]. They are trained economists.”

Retired GE CEO Jack Welch weighed in on this subject, saying “I have no idea where this number came from. I don’t know what the right number is, but I’ll tell you these numbers don’t smell right when you think about where the economy is right now.”

John Williams, head of Shadow Government Statistics, says, “I normally put out a commentary on the numbers, and, in this one, I raised the possibility of politics as a factor. The problem is very serious misreporting of the numbers and the result is what appears to be a bogus unemployment rate.”

Now Gallup chief economist, Dennis Jacobe, is saying that the 7.8 percent unemployment rate should be discounted. As James Pethokoukis writes:

“In a blog post, Dennis Jacobe, Gallup’s chief economist, writes that he seriously doubts whether the economy created nearly 900,000 jobs in September, as measured by the Labor Department’s seasonally adjusted household survey. While the payroll survey of businesses and government showed just 114,000 net new jobs created, the household survey showed a jobs boom, and it’s the latter [the 900,000 jobs “created”] which is used to calculate the unemployment rate.”

“His [Jacobe’s] bottom line: ‘The Household results should be discounted. … The obvious conclusion is that a new employment measure is needed’.”

Jacobe prefers a measurement created by Gallup: Payroll to Population (P2P), or “the number of Americans employed full-time for an employer as a percentage of the US population.” The P2P dropped by 0.2 percent, 45.3 percent to 45.1 percent, from August to September, “suggesting the real jobs situation was essentially unchanged last month.”  [emphasis by Pethokoukis]  Never mind that the low P2P percentage is, itself, bad enough.

How, specifically, did the BLS arrive at the 7.8 percent unemployment rate figure? Two things must simultaneously happen: (1) the number of unemployed people must fall, and (2) the number of employed people must increase. Let’s now see what the BLS used to get that number. According to the BLS, the number of unemployed people dropped by 456,000, the largest September one month decline in BLS data history. And, according to the BLS, the number of employed people increased by 873,000, the largest September one-month gain BLS data history. Did y’all catch that? Both the increase and decrease were the largest in BLS history. Coincidence? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure! How convenient! Or was this just another BLS miracle? The BLS figures don’t pass the “smell” test. Yet Solis chooses to defend them.

This source explains, in much greater detail, just what the BLS did.

So, if anyone wants to argue, bring your economics credentials and argue with Williams and Jacobe. Or bring your CEO credentials and argue with Jack Welch.

This nugget of information has come forth. Have you ever heard of Harley Frazis or Stephen Phillips? They have (at least) two things in common: (1) they are both economists at the BLS, and (2) they are both Obama contributors. I’m not saying that they in any way influenced the current unemployment figure, but “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” in light of the BLS figures and procedures.

We have the Labor Department and the BLS now performing miracles. And Hilda Solis defends them both. What’s next? Is the “Tooth Fairy” going to make an appearance at the BLS? And if the Tooth Fairy makes an appearance, will Obama embrace him as he has done the BLS figures? And will the MSM report the event with no skepticism?

The BLS claim was so ridiculous that it appears now to be backfiring. People not in-the-tank for Obama, who can and will examine what the BLS is doing, are beginning to examine the BLS numbers and procedures, and to call them what they are: made-up figures intended to make Obama (and his economic policies) look good.

But that’s just my opinion.

Please visit RWNO, my personal web site.

Support Conservative Daily News with a small donation via Paypal or credit card that will go towards supporting the news and commentary you've come to appreciate.

Related Articles

Back to top button