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Ahhh, the Old Numbers Game Again
by James Glaser December 4, 2011 
Yesterday, it was reported that another 400,000 Americans filed for unemployment, and today it was reported there were over 100,000 new jobs filled. Then Washington gave us the unemployment number, and low and behold it dropped from 9% down to 8.6%. You might wonder how that happened, eh? Well it is all in the numbers. There were over 100,000 jobs created, but that wouldn't change the unemployment by much. However 315,000 Americans gave up and quit looking for work, so what do you think Washington does with that number? Well, the people who quit looking for work are considered no longer unemployed. So for Washington that was a gain of 415,000 workers who were no longer looking for work, and that means the unemployment number can be lowered. Neat huh? A few years ago inflation was causing Washington to keep raising the COLA for those on Social Security and those disabled. Washington didn't like that, so they played with the numbers used to figure out inflation and wouldn't you know it, inflation ended. In fact, we had a bit of deflation. So now Barack Obama and the Democrats are going to run around the country telling us things are looking up, and unemployment is going back down. Isn't that just wonderful? |
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