In an article posted Tuesday at Power Line Blog, John Hinderaker noted:
Joe Biden’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that over a million jobs were created in the second quarter, a heartening statistic that no doubt helped the Democrats in November. But now, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve says that those million jobs were almost entirely fictitious:
The article at Power Line Blog quotes a Washington Times article from December 16th:
The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.
Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.
The Washington Times also noted:
The BLS, a division of the Department of Labor, estimated net job growth of 1,047,000 jobs in the second quarter. The Philadelphia Fed now says its data shows that 10,500 net jobs were created in that period.
Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida called the development “outrageous.”
“Wrong by a million jobs,” Mr. Scott tweeted Friday. “@JoeBiden’s admin has been lying to the American people about our economy to prop up his failed agenda & I won’t stand for it. I’m requesting an immediate meeting with the head of @BLS_gov. WE NEED ANSWERS NOW!”
President Biden had boasted about the second-quarter job numbers in the heat of the midterm election campaign, using the BLS report as proof that the nation wasn’t headed for a recession.
“In the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than in any quarter under any of my predecessors in the nearly 40 years before the pandemic,” Mr. Biden said on July 8.
The White House repeated the theme a few weeks later.
The article at Power Line Blog concludes:
One of the problems with perverting the federal bureaucracy, as the Democrats have done, is that pretty much everyone loses faith in the integrity of government. At this point, there is no reason to assume that government numbers are accurate and unfudged. We have been lied to, too many times.
It is sad, but that is where we find ourselves. Trust has been destroyed.
It should also be noted that the Workforce Participation Rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has been slowly dropping since August. It will be interesting to see what December’s numbers are.