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Revised Downward
The February jobs numbers that came out Friday just don't make any sense. Unemployment "held steady" at 5.6%, while the number of new jobs created were a paltry 21,000. In general, economists think 150,000 new jobs are needed every month to keep up with population growth (frankly, this number always freaks me out--are we really having that many babies?). In January, 97,000 were created (supposedly...I'll get to that in a minute).
Ok, so 150,000 minus 21,000 is 129,000 people who weren't looking for a job in January but needed to find one in February, but couldn't find one. Wouldn't that add to the unemployment numbers? The reported answer is that the number didn't go up because so many people got so discouraged that they stopped looking for work.
Uh, excuse me, but wouldn't you call these people who can't find a job unemployed? I would. Also, that 97,000 number I mentioned was actually originally reported as 112,000--it was later "revised downward." "Revised downard" is one of those great new terms to come out of the Bush administration. Announce a number that is way better than reality, give a speech about how things are getting better, then, when nobody is paying attention, revise those numbers downward. How about giving the right numbers right up front? Or, imagine this, waiting until you have the right numbers to report them?
Let's see, if they were off by 15,000 jobs last month, then maybe this month there were only 6,000 jobs added. In December, it was originally reported as 16,000, only to be revised downward to 8,000 later, and eventually to 1,000.
On March 4, Bush gave a speech where he said:
Well, lets check his math.
February, '04: initial: 21,000, revised: TBA
January, '04: initial: 112,000, revised: 97,000
December, '03: initial: 16,000, revised: 1,000
November, '03: initial: 57,000, revised: 43,000
October, '03: initial: 126,000, revised: 100,000
After revisions, you get 262,000 jobs in the last five months. Heck, even before revisions you get 332,000. (For a comparison, Clinton averaged 248,000/month during his administration.) Nevermind the fact that just to keep up with all those new eighteen-year-olds, you need an average of 150k/month, or 750,000 over the last five months. Obviously, Bush just figured he'd fib a little, get a nice headline, and nobody would notice.
Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Now don't forget to revise that answer downward next month.
Posted on March 6, 2004 11:41 AM
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