Forbes: There's A Glaring, Misleading Error In The May Jobs Report: U.S. May Be At 20% Unemployment

[ffr]

On Friday, I reported on the data released from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicating that 2.5 million jobs were added in May. This was followed by an enthusiastic take on how the United States may be turning the corner. Despite all of the negatives, it seemed the U.S. was seeing rays of hope.
<snip>

Unfortunately, after delving into the footnotes of the numbers, it now looks like the jobs report has been inaccurate for the last two months. BLS has admitted that government household survey takers mistakenly counted about 4.9 million people as employed, although they were unemployed.

Had the mistake been corrected, the unemployment rate would have risen to 16.1% in May. The corrected April figure would have been more than 19.5%—rather than 14.7%.

The official response was that the government doesn't correct its survey results for fear of the appearance of political manipulation.

Link to tweet

"It’s going to be a problem of credibility now with the BLS,” said Mike Wolford, Director of Customer Success at Claro Workforce Analytics. “[BLS] looks incompetent or political. - Forbes

[sop]

1. Didn't Barr do this with the Mueller report?

[soothsayer]

3. We'll find out starting July 20!

[lagomorph777]

12. Apparently even more than we realized - Judge Walton is pissed.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Gee, ya think

Wall Street cynically played along with this deceptive scam.

[Hoyt]

4. 16% or 13%, it's still bad. At least rate went down a bit- however calculated -hope trend continues.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. That's The Message

UE went down? It's still more than 3.5 times it was when Obama left office.
Not exactly a triumph.

[uponit7771]

11. We don't know if the rate went down, Continuing Claims went up and LFPR went up too ...

... for the U3 UE rate to go down is historically unusual with those two numbers going up.

I'll be like the hospitalizations going through the roof but infection rate going down, could happen but very unusual.

[gratuitous]

5. Trump's crowing about job numbers

But what is there to crow about?



That little fish hook at the bottom of the current situation? Greatly exaggerated, it turns out. But the erroneous data served its purpose last Friday when Trump needed something positive after a week of watching the fences go up around his residence.

[uponit7771]

13. +1, it took weeks for Trump to get America to the UE point it took yrs to get to in other crisis

[DENVERPOPS]

18. Thx Grat

Your chart took my memory back 40 years. I distinctly remember how Reagan/Bush Sr./Cheney screwed with the unemployment figures to falsely claim Thx to Reagan they were going down.
They also screwed with how the cost of living was figured, completely re-doing how and what items were included.......listing only items that remained the same price, to corruptly calculate a low CPI.....,and how Reagan was responsible for a major slowing down of inflation.....

Watching that, and tens of other things they did made me a political junkie from then on. I have been screaming at the top of my lungs ever since.....

All this corruption in the Republican Party is not new folks, not at all. It's just that few were paying attention as it accelerated thru the past four decades and they kept getting away with more and more....

And, regretfully, we ain't seen nothing yet.....Katie Bar the Door......

[Jim__]

6. I am curious as to how that mistake happened.

I understand that compiling these statistics is an extremely complex process. But I do think they could give us some explanation as to how this happened.

[empedocles]

8. Note that the unemployment number may be . . . "20%", - according to Forbes

[Amishman]

9. I like my books cooked well done with ketchup

or should it be so rare that it moos, on account of all the bullshit?

[Under The Radar]

10. Data falsified in order to manipulate the stock market...

Trump has done that trick repeatedly with everything from CDC coronavirus statistics to lying about Trade Agreements, and even trying to influence individual companies stock both negatively and positively for those he likes.
I remember an interview where Alan Greenspan said that he was forbidden to talk to the press about market information due to the possibility of his comments influencing the exchanges. I assume there is a rule or law forbidding artificial influence, but not for Donny.

[padah513]

15. Absolutely

They've been manipulating the market since Drump got in

[smirkymonkey]

14. K&R

[Fla Dem]

16. he Facists favorite tool too! This should be one of the top headlines in tonght's news.

[rurallib]

17. Remember the U6 that Repukes used to beat Obama up with?

The discouraged workers who no longer apply for jobs? Last I looked (about a month ago) that was @ 6%. Add that in and the actual, actual unemployment is @22.5%. Last month it was just short of 25%.

I don't believe we have ever had an honest document of any kind produced by this administration.

[SergeStorms]

19. .."for fear of the appearance of political manipulation."

No. Political manipulation......from the Trump administration? Say it isn't so.