Unemployment improves

[del]

"Obama cooked the books."

Just getting it in for the right wingers start saying it.

if he was going to cook the books, he should have cooked them before unemployment exceeded 8%. that way he could credibly claim that the stimulus worked as advertised.

too little cooking, too late.

tant pis.

Was Obama even president when the unemployment rate was 8%?

the unemployment rate for january 2009 was 7.6%, up from 7.2% in december
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/economy/07jobs.html

"Back in early January, when Barack Obama was still President-elect, two of his chief economic advisers — leading proponents of a stimulus bill — predicted that the passage of a large economic-aid package would boost the economy and keep the unemployment rate below 8%. It hasn't quite worked out that way. Last month, the jobless rate in the U.S. hit 9.5%, the highest level it has reached since 1983.

The two advisers who wrote the paper, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein, went on to land key jobs in the Obama Administration. Romer is the head of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, and Bernstein is the chief economist and economic-policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. And the stimulus bill that both economists championed became law in mid-February."

Barack Obama's Stimulus Plan: Failing by Its Own Measure - TIME

 

[Maple]

That was positive? Or just a bit less negative?

When the total number of unemployed starts dropping that will be positive.

It did................

We went from 10.3% to 10%.

Again that is the unemployment RATE not the number of unemployed. The total number of unemployed went up ~90,000 which is less than expected but still negative (see my link to the bls.gov website above)

And it's going to get more negative in January, we always have an uptick right before Christmas because retailers gear up for the season.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

plus...they reported the workforce is SHRINKING due to people who are quitting to look for work!!!!! More fuzzy math, smoke and mirrors from the Con Man in the White House!!!!!

Read the story....

The rate also dropped because fewer people are looking for work. The size of the labor force, which includes the employed and those actively searching for jobs, fell by nearly 100,000, the third straight decline. That indicates more of the unemployed are giving up on looking for work

Economy sheds fewest jobs since 2007 - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

Oooooops!

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

It did................

We went from 10.3% to 10%.

Again that is the unemployment RATE not the number of unemployed. The total number of unemployed went up ~90,000 which is less than expected but still negative (see my link to the bls.gov website above)

And it's going to get more negative in January, we always have an uptick right before Christmas because retailers gear up for the season.

I tried to sneak that little fact onto the forum 2 months ago http://www.usmessageboard.com/econo...ng-ease-unemployment.html?highlight=christmas

 

[del]

plus...they reported the workforce is SHRINKING due to people who are quitting to look for work!!!!! More fuzzy math, smoke and mirrors from the Con Man in the White House!!!!!

Read the story....

The rate also dropped because fewer people are looking for work. The size of the labor force, which includes the employed and those actively searching for jobs, fell by nearly 100,000, the third straight decline. That indicates more of the unemployed are giving up on looking for work

Economy sheds fewest jobs since 2007 - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

to be fair, the fed's been doing that for quite awhile now.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

plus...they reported the workforce is SHRINKING due to people who are quitting to look for work!!!!! More fuzzy math, smoke and mirrors from the Con Man in the White House!!!!!

Read the story....

The rate also dropped because fewer people are looking for work. The size of the labor force, which includes the employed and those actively searching for jobs, fell by nearly 100,000, the third straight decline. That indicates more of the unemployed are giving up on looking for work

Economy sheds fewest jobs since 2007 - Stocks & economy- msnbc.com

to be fair, the fed's been doing that for quite awhile now.

agreed...the workforce has been shrinking for years now...I think that's what you addressed.....

 

[Maple]

"Obama cooked the books."

Just getting it in for the right wingers start saying it.

if he was going to cook the books, he should have cooked them before unemployment exceeded 8%. that way he could credibly claim that the stimulus worked as advertised.

too little cooking, too late.

tant pis.

Was Obama even president when the unemployment rate was 8%?

Yes, he promised that if we passed that no stimulus stimulus bill back in Febuary it would not go above 8%, well it did. I beleive it was somewhere below that when he took the reigns.

 

[pinqy]

The total number of unemployed went up ~90,000 which is less than expected but still negative (see my link to the bls.gov website above)

Perhaps you need to learn what you're reading. Nowhere in the Employment Situation Summary does it say Unemployment went up anywhere near 98,000. In fact, looking at the tables: Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age the seasonally adjusted unemployment level went from 15,700,000 unemployed to 15,375,000 unemployed. a drop of 325,000 . Now, the Labor Force did go down approx 98,000 but that's not the same thing as unemployed. It's not a good thing when the unemployment rate improves because the labor force is declining, but it's been declining throughout the recession. Of the people looking for work, they're having a slightly easier time overall (varies wildly region to region).

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Obama is on CNN right now spinning away

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

The total number of unemployed went up ~90,000 which is less than expected but still negative (see my link to the bls.gov website above)

Perhaps you need to learn what you're reading. Nowhere in the Employment Situation Summary does it say Unemployment went up anywhere near 98,000. In fact, looking at the tables: Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age the seasonally adjusted unemployment level went from 15,700,000 unemployed to 15,375,000 unemployed. a drop of 325,000 . Now, the Labor Force did go down approx 98,000 but that's not the same thing as unemployed. It's not a good thing when the unemployment rate improves because the labor force is declining, but it's been declining throughout the recession. Of the people looking for work, they're having a slightly easier time overall (varies wildly region to region).

The civilian labor force overall dropped 98,000 jobs. Non farm employment dropped 11,000 jobs

Read the chart. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

 

[Maple]

Obama is on CNN right now spinning away

Spin on, that's all we get from him. Yesterday be was blaming business for seeking profit, increasing productivity, and not hiring.I don't think he knows that business strives to STAY in business by increasing productivity and profits. I think he needs to re-take econ 101.

 

[PatekPhilippe]

Obama is on CNN right now spinning away

Spin on, that's all we get from him. Yesterday be was blaming business for seeking profit, increasing productivity, and not hiring.I don't think he knows that business strives to STAY in business by increasing productivity and profits. I think he needs to re-take econ 101.

The Barry needs any nugget of good news right now to cling to.....
Government run healthcare OFF THE NEWS CYCLE
Afghanistan troop increase so everyone thinks he's a tough guy.
Workforce shrinks so unemployment goes down a tic...

The Barry is in some deep kimchee right now....

 

[Toro]

Um...

Don't retail centers increase staff in Nov/Dec to cover for holiday shopping?

Could this account for the oh so exciting drop from 10.2% to 10.0% unemployment?

Exactly correct...anyone with half a brain knows the retail outlets and manufacturers gear up for the holiday season....but don't let the partisans like rightwinger, polk and Chris in on that fact...just let them continue to make fools out of themselves.

The statisticians know this so they adjust for seasonal employment. The employment data is adjusted for hiring during the holiday season.

 

[pinqy]

The civilian labor force overall dropped 98,000 jobs.

No, it did not...that's not what the labor force means. The labor force is NOT a count of jobs. It is the total number of employed and unemployed from the Current Population survey. The number of employed (remember Household survey, not non-farm payroll) went up 227,000. The number of unemployed went down 325,000
This means MORE people had jobs than last month, BUT the overall labor force went down. This is partly from people no longer looking, more people quitting/retiring than joining or rejoining the labor force...not easy to tell for sure.

You had said "The total number of unemployed went up ~90,000" which is completely untrue. There are approx 98,000 fewer people in the labor force but that is NOT at all the same as the number of unemployed going up 98,000 or saying 98,000 jobs were dropped.

Definitions for the Household survey:
Employed: worked for at least 1 hour for pay or 15 hours upaid in a famly business/farm.

Unemployed: Did not work for at least one hour for pay or 15 hours upaid family and actively looked for work in the previous four weeks.

Labor Force: Employed plus Unemployed.

Not in the Labor force: Did not work in the previous week, or look for work in the previous 4 weeks.

The Labor Force went down, but that is NOT the same as saying that number of jobs were lost or that that number of unemployed went up. The whole reason the labor force went down is because Unemployment went down by more than Employment went up.

Non farm employment dropped 11,000 jobs

Now that's true..sort of. It's the preliminary number and will be revised two more times over the next couple of months.

 

[Maple]

52,000 TEMPORARY jobs have been created. All that is, is SANTA CLAUSE hiring his ELVES. After the Christmas Season the ELVES and SANTA CLAUSE go back to the North Poll without jobs and unemployment checks.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Why argue economics with liberals? They think government creates jobs... right there you know they're fucking clueless.

Don't waste your time... look at that idiot Krugman who argues that CA's woes are because their taxes aren't high enough. Fucking idiots.

 

[Toro]

This is a good number but I wouldn't be surprised if it was revised this down next month. It may be an outlier.

NFPs were revised upward by 159,000 for September and October.

 

[Meister]

Has Obama really done anything in his policies to make the unemployment better in the last month? Or, is it more likely that the recession is starting to wane in its natural cycle with the economy?

 

[pinqy]

52,000 TEMPORARY jobs have been created. All that is, is SANTA CLAUSE hiring his ELVES. After the Christmas Season the ELVES and SANTA CLAUSE go back to the North Poll without jobs and unemployment checks.

For the third time in this thread, that's accounted for and filtered out in the employment and unemployment figures.

 

[Meister]

Has Obama really done anything in his policies to make the unemployment better in the last month? Or, is it more likely that the recession is starting to wane in its natural cycle with the economy?

In the immortal word of Dogbert..."thoughts?"