Last week the White House claimed that unemployment dropped for the fifth consecutive month to 8.3 percent making it the lowest number in three years. That would mean 243,000 jobs were added, according the the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Really.
Not so fast say financial experts who claim the statistics are grossly manipulated to paint a rosy picture of the Obama administration's "efforts" to combat continuing high unemployment. They charge the federal agency (BLS) with significantly decreasing the numbers in the American workforce.
So how can that be?
“If you hold the workforce participation rate constant over the past year, unemployment would be about 8.9 percent instead of 8.3 percent,” according to GOP economist Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies in an interview last week on CNBC's Squawk Box.
To make the numbers even more questionable, the very same Bureau of Labor Statistics report on unemployment, claiming a drop of 8.3 percent, also reported the number of people either working or looking for work declined 1.2 million in one month.
What? 1.2 million? The next hard question should be how can unemployment figures truly be dropping?
The unemployment rate is determined by dividing the number of unemployed job-seekers by the total labor force. By reducing the number of workers in the overall workforce, the Obama administration can show actual unemployment dropping, when, in fact, improvement has been marginal at best.
Many experts consider official statistics released to the public to be seriously underestimated in terms of how bad the unemployment situation really is.
Is anyone surprised by that in an election year?
Another twisted indicator is people who “retire” from the workforce, or simply give up looking because of prolonged unemployment. The BLS declares them “discouraged workers.” They are considered “marginally attached” to the workforce.
Say that again?
Dropping these groups keeps the unemployment rate substantially lower than it would be otherwise, and has been the key to the improvements in the unemployment figures during the past year. The real statistics indicate people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record of 1.2 million, according to Tyler Durden of Zerohedge.com.
The most recent assertion of unemployment numbers was based on a claim that the entire U.S. workforce has shrunk to a 30-year low.
How can that be? Isn't the overall population way up?
An analysis by Joseph Curl if the Washington Times shows the labor force as a percentage of the available population hit 66 percent in October, 1988, and remained thee throughout the presidency of George H.W. Bush, slightly above that during Bill Clinton's presidency and above 66 percent through virtually all of President George W. Bush's presidency.
At the end of President Obama's first year in office?
The number had dipped to 64.6 percent, before dipping to 63.7 percent last month – the lowest point in almost three decades. According to TrimTabs.com, a firm using a more modern and timely measurement tool using actual tax receipts from the IRS to calculate unemployment, the economy added only 44,000 jobs in January.
Not nearly enough to keep unemployment from growing. As Trim.Tabs.com's CEO said, “I don't know whether they're (CLS job stats) politically motivated or not.
President Obama says, “These numbers will go up and down in the coming months, and there's still far too many Americans who need a job or need a job that pays better than the one they have now. But the economy is growing stronger.”
Huh?
There has been no major change in how the rate is calculated in over a decade, according to BLS spokesman Gary Steinberg. If someone is not actively looking for work for the four weeks preceding the reference week, they're not in the labor force according to the BLS.
As the Republicans continue to tear each other apart with endless debates and primaries/caucuses, the airwaves and newspapers are inundated with mind-numbing statistics that go virtually unchallenged by an equally numb American public and complient media.
Let the general election campaign begin as soon as possible.
There's much to talk about.
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