Looking Behind The Unemployment Numbers

Bloomberg.com posted a story today on the unemployment numbers released today. The unemployment rate has dropped to 8.6 percent from 9 percent. That sounds good until you realize that in order to create that unemployment number, the American labor force had to be reduced considerably.

The article reports:

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 9 percent. The decrease in the jobless rate reflected a 278,000 gain in employment at the same time 315,000 Americans left the labor force.

“You’d like to see the unemployment rate coming down when people are coming into the job market, not disappearing,” James Glassman, senior economist at JP Morgan Chase & Co. in New York, said in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene.

So 278,000 people got jobs, 315,000 people gave up on finding jobs, and the unemployment rate went down. Somehow I don’t think that is the way you are supposed to lower unemployment. I don’t know if all administrations cook the numbers this way, but obviously this one does. I strongly suggest that whoever the Republican presidential candidate is, we elect him. Maybe then we will get honest numbers.

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