Last week, the White House claimed that unemployment dropped for the fifth consecutive month to 8.3 percent — the lowest it has been in nearly three years — after adding 243,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But financial experts are saying the figures may have been manipulated — and that the significant drop in employment was because of the fact that the federal agency charged with computing key economic data has significantly decreased the number of Americans in the workforce.
“If you hold the workforce participation rate constant over the past year, unemployment would be about 8.9 percent instead of 8.3 percent,” GOP economist Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box. "So it is a weird number that is out there, and I think people have to be looking at that carefully.”
The same Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report that showed unemployment dropping to 8.3 percent showed total workforce participation — the number of people either working or looking for work — declining by 1.2 million people in one month.
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.
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3 comments:
It's not "smoke and mirrors" when they are using the same methodology that has always been used and there is no one trying to hide the methodology. It's called "use your brain".
The true number of Unemployed Americans is about 20%. They make their number try to look good so Obama can win another term. They don't count people that their unemployment has run out or those that gave up looking for a job. They are only using those recieving unemployment. Like you said smoke and mirrors.
Noooooo, there is plenty of jobs. Just go to monster.com
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