We're going to see some fucked up economic numbers leading up to Nov

[maxrandb]

You could call it the "last throes of the 1%".

They are going to pull out all the stops to keep their gravy train running.

It won't work.

It might have worked with a different Retrumplican, but it won't work with this guy.

He could give every American a million dollars, but it wouldn't be enough to buy Democracy.

He's gone full on Saddam. No amount of cooked economic books is going to be enough to get Americans to accept this shitshow for 4 more years.

[Initech]

1. Yeah COVID took a colossal shit on everything.

So Trump can't run on the economy, which was his baby, even though he really took credit for everything Obama did.

[KPN]

2. Yeah, and the Washington Post even published

that unemployment number?!

[Cicada]

3. Dept of Labor stats can't be cooked

The procedure is so complicated And cross linked that not even Albert Einstein could Fudge it.

Millions of forms 941 flow in the IRS with corresponding payroll tax info. The employee numbers will match the dollars received. If not it would blow the minds of tens of thousands of government accountants. At the same time state employer tax forms are sent separately to state offices. The number of workers will match and a discrepancy would be noticed. Employees file for unemployment benefits and if their claims don’t track the employer forms the discrepancy would be noticed.

At the same time the giant private payroll company ADP publishes its figures and the minor discrepancies between ADP and Dept of Labor always converge after a couple months. If not again tens of thousands of accountants this time both govt and private would seek admission to mental hospitals, certain they had gone insane.

You can argue about what the numbers mean but the numbers will be real.

[fishwax]

6. the news release of the numbers seems to indicate otherwise

The numbers are real, sure, but that doesn't mean that they're accurate--at least, not in the short term.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

In the household survey, individuals are classified as employed, unemployed, or not in the labor force based on their answers to a series of questions about their activities during the survey reference week (May 10th through May 16th). Workers who indicate they were not working during the entire survey reference week and expect to be recalled to their jobs should be classified as unemployed on temporary layoff. In May, a large number of persons were classified as unemployed on temporary layoff.

However, there was also a large number of workers who were classified as employed but absent from work. As was the case in March and April, household survey interviewers were instructed to classify employed persons absent from work due to coronavirus-related business closures as unemployed on temporary layoff. However, it is apparent that not all such workers were so classified. BLS and the Census Bureau are investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur and are taking additional steps to address the issue.

If the workers who were recorded as employed but absent from work due to “other reasons” (over and above the number absent for other reasons in a typical May) had been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff, the overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported (on a not seasonally adjusted basis). However, according to usual practice, the data from the household survey are accepted as recorded. To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc actions are taken to reclassify survey responses.

[Cicada]

7. Thank you. Number who worked can not be altered.

Their stats include some figures based on surveys of people, asked just like in public opinion polls, which may be wrong. Are you looking for work? People can answer that question incorrectly. But did you work? Tax was withheld so we know that’s correct. And survey results will be entered in real time and many will be recorded so supervisors can check on employees making the calls. Altering those computer entered results without detection would be basically impossible too.

[global1]

4. I Say They Are Going To Be "Trumped Up" Economic Numbers.....

created and faked by 'you know who'.

[empedocles]

8. trump has many 'tools' to work with

[quaker bill]

5. some jobs were always coming back quickly

They were only artificially gone in the first place. As businesses reopen people will go back to work in them. Some businesses will not reopen, some have shuttered permanently, others are reorganizing under bankruptcy laws. So lets say we lost 9 million jobs last month and 2.5 million have come back this month, that is still a loss of 6.5 million jobs.