The Thing To Remember Is That You Can Get Numbers To Say Anything You Want Them To If You Play With Them Long Enough

I am a numbers person.  I like to see numbers in front of me in order to figure out what a situation is.  Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn't.  There are two stories posted today on the internet about the new jobs numbers that show why we need to examine any government numbers carefully.

The first, at CNBC, is an article by Jeff Cox, which states that while the government reported that the unemployment rate in July dropped from 9.2 percent in June to 9.1 percent in July, the drop was caused by the fact that the number is based on a smaller workforce.  

The article states:

"According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics breakdown, there were 139,296,000 people working in July, compared to 139,334,000 the month before, or a drop of 38,000."

Obviously, if many of the unemployed are not counted as part of the workforce, the unemployment number will be lower. 

The article further reports:

"The average duration of unemployment rose for the third straight month and is now at a record 40.4 weeks--about 10 months and now double where it was when President Obama took office in January 2009. The total number unemployed for more than half a year now stands at 6.18 million, 130 percent higher than when the president's term began."

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air quoted Bloomberg:

"The jobless rate declined as 193,000 people left the labor force and the number of unemployed dropped by 156,000. The share of the eligible population holding a job declined to 58.1 percent, the lowest since July 1983."

I have no idea why the numbers from Bloomberg and the Bureau of Labor Statistics are different.  We did add 117,000 jobs last month.  That is good news.  There are a few things we can do to encourage the economy to grow--get rid of unnecessary government regulations, develop our own energy resources, and change the tax structure so that it does not punish success.  Until those things are done (or at least one or two of them), the economy will continue to limp along.