I'll let this one speak for itself.
But, before I continue, I will repeat a self-evident truth: the more Democrats trumpet incredulously irrelevant and sadly erroneous government statistics regarding our economy, the more they alienate themselves from the current reality on Main Street.
We ignore the daily observations of those that would vote for Democrats while we worship the statistical lies of a status quo that buys their votes. How is that? IMHO, it's the very antithesis of what The Party is supposed to be about.
Or, is it merely indicative of our longing for good economic news that makes us applaud meaningless, quantified kabuki?
The concept that talk of a "recovery"--one that is now widely referred to as a "jobless recovery"--somehow resonates with a public that is witnessing unemployment levels unseen since the Great Depression does nothing to help our cause. Devoid of empathy, it is the quintessential definition of everything that is wrong with politics.
IMHO, for Democrats, aside from being self-defeating, that's just shameful.
Rephrasing that final line from the movie, "Soylent Green," UNEMPLOYMENT IS...PEOPLE!
This past Friday, one commenter and diarist on the economy in this community (I'm not providing a link, you'll just have to take my word for it) actually had the audacity to tell us to ignore the much more negative (of the two government unemployment/employment surveys) Establishment Survey, and to focus upon the Household Survey because, paraphrasing their rationale, "...that was the survey from which we obtained the headline unemployment percentages."
So, alrighty then! Let's take a look at the Household Survey results (i.e.: what we're "supposed to focus upon").
Please, by all means come to your own conclusions, regarding what you're about to read: Observations regarding Friday's BLS' January 2010 Employment Situation Report from Bill King, publisher of The King Report, via Barry Ritholtz and his "Big Picture" blog, today: "King Report: Why I Don't Believe the Household Survey."
King Report: Why I Don't Believe the Household Survey
via Barry Ritholtz's "The Big Picture" blog
By Bill King - February 8th, 2010, 12:00PM
...The Household Survey shows an increase of 541k jobs and a gain of 111k in the pool of available workers. This produced the decline to 9.7% in the politically sensitive unemployment rate...Part-time workers increased 252k, which is more than half of the 541k gain.
Here's what makes the Household Survey job gain very suspicious. The entire gain is attributed to one category, `Women, 20 years and over', which increased 529k...'Men, 20+' declined 1k!
Further taking the government's numbers at face value, as King points out, we are also supposed to believe:
1.) On a non-seasonally adjusted ("NSA") basis, women aged 20+ saw an employment increase of 7,000, while men 20+ lost 914,000 jobs. (SEE THIS LINK.)
2.) "White women" acccounted for 495,000 of the 529,000-job gain among all women, 20+.
3.) White men accounted for only 31,000 of those newly-employed.
4.) New teenage males employed (16+) amounted to 18,000, yet teenage female jobholders declined by 5,000.
5.) The Household Survey showed an increase in jobs for January, but it's NOT supported by the withholding tax totals collected by our government. They declined, year-over-year and month-to-comparable-month. (Remember last January, the worst single month for job losses reported in generations? In January '09, the goverment collected $151.285 billion in withholding taxes. In January '10, the goverment collected $140.381 billion in withholding taxes. Read this last sentence again, please.)
From TrimTabs via Mish Shedlock: "BLS Seasonal Adjustments Gone Haywire; 11% Unemployment Coming by May?"
BLS Seasonal Adjustments Gone Haywire; 11% Unemployment Coming by May?
Mish Shedlock
Global Economic Analysis Blog
Monday, February 08, 2010
...Please consider TrimTabs: Here's Why The Real Jobs Loss Number Was 5x Worse Than What The BLS Reported
TrimTabs employment analysis, which uses real-time daily income tax deposits from all U.S. taxpayers to compute employment growth, estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the U.S. economy lost 20,000 jobs. We believe the BLS has underestimated January's results due to problems inherent in their survey techniques...
And more inconvenient facts from King:
The Household Survey's highly improbable increase in only female employment suggests faulty methodology (malfeasance), some unqualified adjustment or a clumsy attempt to craft a better employment report for political expediency (fraud). The reasonable conclusion is the Household Survey job gain in January is bogus.
King reminds us that: "...People are classified as employed if they did any work at all as paid employees during the reference week; worked in their own business, profession, or on their own farm; (diarist's note: without respect to income actually received) or worked without pay at least 15 hours in a family business or farm. " See THIS for a more detailed definition from our goverment.
Please note the in the Household Survey people are counted as employed even if they received no income or had sustained absences from work. You can imagine what `personal reasons' does to the data.
--SNIP--
The BLS claims that the `population control' adjustment reduced the Household Survey by 243k. This means that without the new adjustment 784k jobs would've appeared. If 529k job growth is dubious by tax data, January job growth of 784k would be side-splitting.
(NOTE: King is not referencing the business birth/death ratio, but flawed census analysis.)
Yeah, it's all about the spin and the "error-ridden" data, as it was noted by Syracuse University economist Gary V. Engelhardt in the final graph of Ritholtz' piece, where Engelhardt also stated that "...sometimes those errors are large."
But, the unemployment rate dropped 3/10th's of a point in January...honest! Our goverment said so!
And, as we all know, it's not about the people--they're "only" voters--it's all about the spin, right?