For seven months, the unemployment rated DROPPED. Now, it went up 1/10 of 1%...

[Atman]

It's CATACLYSMIC! That's all I see on the news today...Unemployment rate SKYROCKETS by 1/10 of a percent...(Honestly, I might be wrong...it might have been 2/10 of a percent). What the bloody fuck is wrong with this country? Oh, wait, I know. THE MEDIA.

.

[Lucinda]

1. :) Amazing isn't it?

[northernlights]

2. up by 0.2%....at the start of the "holiday sales" hiring "boom"

when it was expected to go down.

Oh, and dropped even with failure to extend unemployment, dropping how many 99ers into oblivion?

And in 7 months, how much has it dropped by?

[BzaDem]

7. It's seasonally adjusted. The boom shouldn't matter. My guess is that this number is significantly

revised upwards next month. The household survey was ironically much more favorable than the payroll survey.

[northernlights]

11. your guess is based on what? rhetorical question. I really am not interested in your guess.

And I'll take payroll numbers over household surveys any day of the week.

[BzaDem]

13. Oh don't worry -- I don't particularly care what you are interested in. I was posting for others.

"And I'll take payroll numbers over household surveys any day of the week."

That's fine. The last 2 month's payroll surveys were revised upward 40 thousand this month. The margin of error on the payroll survey is plus or minus 100,000 jobs.

"your guess is based on what?"

The fact that all the other data indicates the opposite. ADP had nearly 100k job growth (and they are usually more conservative). Retail sales numbers are way up... except in this report, which has retail sales going down. Gallup's nationwide poll had unemployment dropping significantly last month -- and their data is more up to date than the payroll survey's data. etc...

[girl gone mad]

23. ADP has been consistently bad for months now.

Every analyst I know ignores it.

And the household survey? You're joking, right?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aB3TRqqC9acI&refer=worldwide_news

[BzaDem]

25. ADP uses different criteria, so you can't compare it directly.

But the ADP result earlier this week is inconsistent with the payroll survey. So is Gallup's data, in addition to other traditional economic indicators (such as retail sales data, tax receipts, weekly unemployment claims, etc). All of these indicators measure different things, but taken together, the chance that the payroll survey is correct (given the other statistical data) is very low. Remember, the payroll survey when released has a margin of error of plus or minus 100,000 jobs. We have had some pretty gigantic revisions in past months.

As for the household survey, I never said it was more accurate than the payroll survey. It isn't, and it measures different things. I just said that it was ironic that people are trumpeting the household survey as a sign of doom and gloom, despite that this month the household survey shows a better result than the payroll survey.

[Dr.Phool]

31. Months?

I've been following them for over 3 years now. And they have ALWAYS, every time been wrong. Every single time. And always to the optimistic side. Sometimes they're off as much as 25%.

[BzaDem]

36. What do you mean "wrong?" The margins of error on these things are plus or minus 100,000.

They also have different methodologies.

So if you were to run the BLS survey methods twice, you could get two completely different results. But on top of that, ADP does not use BLS' methodology. So I find it hard to see how you could conclude that ADP is "wrong" by simply comparing it to a different survey with a similarly wide margin of error. Nor could one conclude that they are "right" by simple comparison. They are simply two different data points.

The point is though that it isn't just ADP that disagrees with BLS. It is lots of data (ADP, Gallup, tax receipts, retail sails numbers, weekly unemployment claims, etc) that all points in the exact opposite direction of BLS this month.

[suston96]

3. Wait a few days or weeks....Those numbers are often regurgitated. nt

[Tippy]

4. A Perfectly Good Excuse For Not Extending Unemployment Benefits

[glen123098]

5. It is bad news.

Its not just percentages. Every 1/10 of a percent represents tens of thousands of people who can't get jobs.

[BzaDem]

6. It actually went up because 150k more people re-entered the labor force than got a job. n/t

[Imajika]

15. Which means the real unemployment rate was worse all along..

n/t

[NightWatcher]

8. realize please that the Obama Admin will never admit to 10% unemployment

All this flirting with the "official rate" of 9.6%-9.8% while they refuse to extend benefits to the terminally unemployed while the GOP holds the Admin hostage until they give an $83,000 credit to the 15,000 or so millionaires and billionaires is shameful. If they acknowledged how many people were truly unemployed (some say around 16% to 18%) there is no way they could sit back and allow millionaires to screw the rest of us. Why the Dems wont get a spine and force this through while 3.2 million people lose their benefits of on average $300 bucks a week by the end of the year.

[BzaDem]

9. Actually, they "admitted" to 10% unemployment for several months. n/t

[MadHound]

10. Actually it went up 2/10 of one percent

And for those extra 472,000, I'm sure it is pretty cataclysmic for them, just as unemployment is cataclysmic for anybody who is in that spot.

But hey, keep on denigrating and downplaying the pain and suffering of the unemployed. Perhaps you'll develop some empathy if you ever become unemployed.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. Atman Probably Has A Job

It really is a dumb post... What's his point. Is it that the employment picture has sucked for the past three years and now that it sucks even more people shouldn't talk about it.

[Atman]

17. Yes, Atman has a job. My point is the lying media.

I think I stated that pretty clearly in my OP. No one seemed to complain when Bush totally fudged the numbers and claimed the unemployment rate was 5%. It never was that low, he (they) just used a different method to calculate the rate. Now, under Obama, we're back to the REAL numbers, and everyone is outraged. Bush can lie through his teeth, everything is cool. Under Obama, the media is in a frenzy because HE made it go up. Fucking bullshit. As is your response.

.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

30. The Number Sucked And Has Sucked For What Seems Forever

Folks are losing everything...

Do you want us to ignore it?

[pintobean]

19. +1

[LLStarks]

12. Any rise in unemployment is bad because it compounds month-by-month. nt

[spin]

16. If the economy was getting healthier it should be dropping ...

employers hate uncertainty. Congress needs to make some decisions about taxes and it needs to make those decisions quickly. If no decision is reached expect the stock market to drop like a rock in twelve days.

Delaying Tax Vote Could Crash Stock Market
Posted: December 2, 2010


Failure by Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts, especially locking in the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, will spark a stock market sell off starting December 15 as investors move to lock in gains at a lower rate than the 20 percent it would jump to next year, warn analysts.

While it is unclear how bad the sell off could be, it could wipe out the year's gains, they warn.

"Capital gains tax rate will increase from 15 to 20 percent if the tax cuts are not extended. The last time the capital gains tax rate increased--on Jan. 1, 1987 from 20 to 28 percent--investors realized their gains at the lower tax rate," said Daniel Clifton at a Washington partner at Strategas Research Partners. "We would expect a similar effect this time around as investors see the tax rate going up and choose to realize their gains and incur the 15 percent tax."

In a memo to clients, Clifton says that the date most clients are focused on is December 15th for a deal in Congress before beginning to sell. One reason: Many stock options expire that day and investors have to act.
http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/12/2/delaying-tax-vote-could-crash-stock-market.htmlAnswer%20Question

It's time for both parties to stop playing political games and to make some decisions.

[mstinamotorcity]

29. Personally the American people

should have crashed the stock market themselves!!!!!!!!

[pintobean]

18. You must have a job.

From where I'm sitting (at home), it sucks bad. Up .2% would be a cause for optimism.

[Atman]

20. I must have a job.

I have a job.

Okay, I got that. I have a job. I have a fucking job. Does that mean I don't have any insight? Since you apparently DON'T have a job, what is your point? I can't understand how the numbers are contrived? I need to be unemployed to understand? Jesus H. Christ...

[pintobean]

21. You're a real peach.

[Atman]

22. And you're a real...uh...what? Avocado?

Again, what is your freakin' point? That because I'm employed I can't have any insight into the way the numbers we're being fed are a crock of shit? I have to be unemployed to have any empathy or insight? Is that what you're saying?

[girl gone mad]

24. The report came in 75% below expectations.

That's a massive miss, no matter how you spin it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

33. Ding Ding Ding

We have a winner.

"Everybody" was expecting a good number and we got a crappy one. The media isn't going to ignore a "man bites dog" story...

[spanone]

26. i been thinking the same thing....the media is the opposition

[spanone]

27. brian williams just called the jobs report dismal....

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. It's Dismal If You Don't Have A Job

It's even more dismal if you lost your job and home and have three kids to feed and have to stand at a Tampa intersection with a sign that says "Lost Job. Lost Home. Have Three Children. Please Help."

Yeah, it's pretty fucking dismal. Brian Williams can't say it enough...


I'll say it.


It's pretty fucking dismal.

[Sirveri]

28. U3 is DOWN .2% from Nov 2009. But U5 is flat. So the economy isn't going anywhere.

U6 the underemployment rate dropped by .2% as well however.

[mstinamotorcity]

32. No matter what the numbers are

these are peoples lives they are playing with. This is about the American people and the lowering of wages. Its like everyone must spend there time arguing over numbers and statistics. You don't need numbers to indicate what your reality is. If one person becomes unemployed it has the possibility to effect the outcome of 3 to 7 jobs related to their unemployment. So when those who have jobs realize this,then maybe they will advocate for themselves. See no one wants to believe the little old man who mops the office building floors to a mirror shine for about ten bucks an hour has any value to the upper 2%. Oh but he does!!!! And the sooner we realize it the better off we will be!!!

TOMBStone

[sendero]

35. Well...

.. it IS. Because it lays to rest the ridiculous notion that we are in a "recovery".

We are not, and the jobs number proves it.