{"id":2021,"date":"2010-07-03T15:28:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T15:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2021"},"modified":"2010-07-03T15:28:54","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T15:28:54","slug":"moving_the_goalpost_on_unemplo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2021","title":{"rendered":"Moving The Goalpost On Unemployment Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsbusters.org\/blogs\/tom-blumer\/2010\/07\/03\/ap-quietly-lowers-normal-unemployment-bar-6\">Newsbusters<\/a>&nbsp;posted a story today on how unemployment numbers have been reported in recent years.&nbsp; The Associated Press, in writing its story about the June unemployment figures stated:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p><em>&#8220;&#8230;Unemployment is expected to stary above 9 percent through the midterm elections in November.&nbsp; And the Fed predicts joblessness could still be as high as 7.5 percent two years from now.&nbsp; <strong>Normal is considered closer to 6 percent<\/strong>, and economists say it will probably take until the middle of this decade to achieve that.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Let&#8217;s go back and see how unemployment numbers were handled during the Bush Administration.&nbsp; According to the article at Newsbusters:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>&#8220;On October 7, 2003, USA Today told readers that &#8220;Californians face an $8 billion state budget deficit, persistent unemployment and struggling schools.&#8221;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Golden State&#8217;s unemployment rate in September 2003&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/history\/laus_10212003.txt\"><font color=\"#ff4010\">was 6.4%<\/font><\/a>.<em>&#8220;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;On June 2003, Reuters reported on consumer sentiment relayed that &#8220;Consumer sentiment deteriorated sharply in early June, suggesting persistent unemployment is taking its toll on American&#8217;s expectations for the economy&#8217;s future.&#8221;&nbsp; The national unemployment rate in May 2003&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/history\/empsit_06062003.txt\"><font color=\"#ff4010\">was 6.1%<\/font><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The article also cites&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/03\/29\/books\/no-country-for-radicals.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes+Topics%2FSubjects%2FB%2FBooks+and+Literature&amp;pagewanted=all\">a March 29, 1987 book review<\/a>&nbsp;at the New York Times, again declaring persistent unemployment under the Reagan Administration&#8211;the unemployment&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1987\/04\/04\/business\/business-digest-saturday-april-4-1987.html?scp=229&amp;sq=unemployment+rate+march+1987&amp;st=nyt\"><font color=\"#ff4010\">at the time was 6.5%<\/font><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\" dir=\"ltr\">If you are in the habit of getting your news from mainstream news sources, watch the wording&#8211;you can be led down the garden path before you even have a clue you are being taken for a ride.&nbsp; I expect we will see many economic indicators&nbsp;be redefined&nbsp;between now and November!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Newsbusters&nbsp;posted a story today on how unemployment numbers have been reported in recent years.&nbsp; The Associated Press, in writing its story about the June unemployment figures stated: &#8220;&#8230;Unemployment is expected to stary above 9 percent through the midterm elections in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=2021\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}