So we are discovering that the unemployment rate is going in the upward direction. For those who are drinking the Obama Kool-aid, that’s not ‘essentially changed’ and not ‘moving in the right direction.’ The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in the United States rose from 8.2% to 8.3% in July. Yes there were 163,000 jobs added but what we are not told is if they are permanent jobs, part time jobs or God forbid government jobs.
What becomes comical is how this summertime jobs reports gets completely distorted by the White House and the liberal media.
Let’s take the New York Times, for example. How are they spinning this?
In the last 10 July jobs reports, dating back to 2002, the agency has added an average of 1.33 million jobs to its original estimate. Last year, for example, the agency estimated that payrolls declined by 1.3 million jobs in July, but it reported a seasonally adjusted increase of 96,000 jobs.
That places a huge premium on the accuracy of the adjustment: A 5 percent error in the adjustment would have shifted the reported total last July by two-thirds.
And even in the best of times, the bureau’s estimates are rarely that accurate.
Joel Pollack at Breibart.com also gives insight into how the Obama administration and the media will seek to spin the news:
With a rising unemployment rate set to dent President Barack Obama’s re-election efforts, the mainstream media is about to go into full-spin mode. They can take their cues from the Bureau of Labor Statistics itself, which announced that the jobless rate had risen from 8.2 to 8.3 percent in July but called the result “essentially unchanged.” Look, also, for the media to emphasize that jobs grew by 163,000–without noting that the number is seasonally adjusted to account for one million holiday jobs lost each year at this time, and without noting that June’s job numbers were revised downwards radically, from 80,000 to 64,000.
The Obama campaign’s tactics include these and other lines, including: the claim that jobs are, at least, moving in the right direction (far too slowly, but never mind); the boast that there has been positive private-sector job growth for nearly thirty months (as opposed to more than fifty months under George W. Bush); and, when all else fails, the excuse that Obama “inherited” a bad economy (as did Bush from Clinton, but you didn’t hear him complaining, and nobody told Obama that he had to run for president in the first place).
Whatever happens Americans, Barack Obama will always tell you to not believe your lying eyes and if you do then it’s Bush’s fault.
Update: Guy Benson at Townhall.com points out the real unemployment numbers:
The U-6 “real” unemployment figure crept up to a full 15 percent. The U-3 number (8.3 percent) would be 11 percent if Obama had maintained the workforce participation rate he inherited. Instead, it has slipped to a three-decade low, perversely “helping” the unemployment rate. The U-3 number among Hispanics and African Americans remains in double-digits (10.3 and 14.1 percent, respectively)
Update 2: Take a look at the “adjusted for reality” White House “stimulus graph.‘
