Friday, October 5, 2012

New Unemployment Numbers Have Been Met With Skepticism By Political Pundits


Mitt Romney and Barack Obama

After losing the first presidential debate to challenger Mitt Romney by a massive margin on Wednesday night, President Barack Obama is being accused of releasing doctored unemployment numbers today, in a fraudulent bid to counter the erosion in public support and bad publicity. The debate was watched by 67,000,000 people in America, significantly higher than in 2008.

Economists are calling the numbers fake and implausible, as they do not add up or reconcile with historical patterns. A few months ago, the Obama Administration was condemned for purging 1.1 million Americans from the employment records, in another falsified attempt to artificially lower the unemployment rate during an election year. In short, the administration overdid it, as what they are claiming is the equivalent of the U.S. economy out of nowhere setting a 29-year record for hiring, in the space of 4 short weeks. 

STORY SOURCE 

Economist: Unemployment drop ‘implausible … a statistical quirk’

October 5, 2012, 12:05 pm - I posted a bit of this earlier, but here is the entire, eye-opening note from economists John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros of RDQ Economics: This report is a tale of two labor markets. The establishment survey (payrolls) painted a picture of moderately growing employment over the last three months but at a marginally slower pace than over the last year. At this pace of job creation, the unemployment rate should be barely drifting lower given underlying demographic trends. In contrast, the household survey painted a picture of a sharply falling unemployment rate—down 1.2% points over the last 12 months.

Such a rapid decline in the unemployment rate would be consistent with 4%–5% real economic growth historically but much of the decline is accounted for by people dropping out of the labor force (over the last year the employment-population ratio has risen to only 58.7% from 58.4%). We believe part of the drop in the unemployment rate over the last two months is a statistical quirk (the household data show an increase in employment of 873,000 in September, which is completely implausible and likely a result of sampling volatility).

Moreover, declining labor force participation over the last year (resulting in 1.1 million people disappearing from the labor force) accounts for much of the rest of the decline. With this report, the ISMs, and vehicle sales, the September economy is off to a better-than-expected start but nowhere near as good as suggested by the decline in the unemployment rate.


JACK WELCH: Obama Is Manipulating The Jobs Numbers Because His Debate Performance Was Awful

Oct. 5, 2012, 8:40 AM - Former GE CEO Jack Welch's reaction to non-farm payrolls adding 114,000 new jobs in September and the unemployment rate falling to 7.8 percent:

The Department of Labor said that unemployment fell 0.3 percent because of a total employment gain of 873,000, the most since 1983. The number of unemployed, meanwhile, fell 456,000 in September.


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